


A Deal with the Devil (Who Also Happens to be Your Only Friend)

by thatonedudewiththename



Series: Jack's a Little Different [4]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Attempted Sexual Assault, Background Relationships, Blood and Gore, Demon AU, Demonic Possession, Drug Use, Eventual Relationships, Horror, M/M, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-01 09:35:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5200982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatonedudewiththename/pseuds/thatonedudewiththename
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vinny wouldn't think he was lonely enough to sign a blood contract with a demon to be his friend, but when the creature shows up one day and offers, who is he to say otherwise?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yeah so this thing

It was close to three in the afternoon; Vinny was feeling a little stuffy in his apartment, which was kind of strange considering he'd gone out just recently for a few hours. Regardless, he took his keys and wallet and put his small, white dog Molly on a leash, then left for the park a couple blocks away. He decided to walk instead of taking a cab, more for Molly's sake than his since it must suck being stuck inside an apartment for hours at a time (considering that Molly was a pretty hyper dog); she stayed in front of Vinny the whole time they walked to the park, and when they made it, Vinny sitting on a bench and smoking a cigarette, he let her off her leash and allowed her to run around—within sight, of course, he didn't want her getting hurt or taken. 

As he sat and smoked, he took in the actually nice New York afternoon, with the sun shining and a soft breeze blowing through the air. The trees were trembling softly, with their branches swaying, giving way to the gentle wind pushing against them; it was serene, almost, and Vinny decided that this was just what he and Molly needed—though he was a little hungry. Maybe he could get something to eat after this.

He was startled out of his thoughts by the sound of Molly running back to him and barking like crazy. She stopped to his left in front of the bench and stared at the seat, a low growl building in her tiny throat that turned into a ferocious woof that Vinny had never heard her do before; usually, she never even growled. "Molly! What are you doing?" He asked her, his eyes flitting from her to the space next to him and then back again. "There's nothing there! Stop it!" 

He reached out to pick her up, but she snapped at him, then when he recoiled, went back to barking at the wooden bench. Vinny stared at her in confusion and slight fear—what was wrong with her? She never acted like this! Usually she was a quiet, happy dog who never snapped at anything... 

Molly began to whine and whimper and run in circles before a grey mist began to spout out of the seat beside him, curling around Vinny and Molly. The wood slowly started to glow like it was catching fire, and then, in a puff of smoke, a creature appeared in front of Vinny. By now, Molly was curled up under the bench, shaking and shivering— Vinny could hear her whimpering. 

However, he didn't have time to dwell on that, as the being in front of him demanded all of his attention; its beige, rippled horns twisted and stretched out up over its head and back, its many eyes watched him with pupiless and white intensity, its nude body sat casually turned to face Vinny, with its goat-like legs splayed out to take up as much space as possible, along with its tail, which curled around behind it to rest on Vinny's shoulder. Vinny himself was still trying to come to terms with the fact that what he was seeing was real. In all honesty, it looked like a demon straight out of mythology, but that was impossible because—  
"I know what you're t'inkin'," It said, the movement of its lips revealing its many sharp and long teeth. The softness and human-like quality of its voice startled Vinny. It leaned a little closer to him and smiled. "'Wh-what is t'is _t'ing_ I-I see before me?' Am I wr-wrong?"

Vinny couldn't respond, so he just nodded. It made a pleasant sound in its throat and smiled wide. "I'm a d-demon, Vinny, and t'is is yer lucky day!"

"An Irish demon?" Was the first thing Vinny could think to say—with that accent, how could it be anything else?

"At one point, m-may-maybe I was." It said, reclining back and putting its arms above its head. "But fer n-now, I'm Sean, and I'm h-here-here to grant you a wish."

Vinny narrowed his eyes (he was becoming used to the sight of this thing, and could now return to his regular self) and glared suspiciously at it—him, whatever. "A wish? In exchange for what, my soul?" He asked.

"Ye c-catch on quick, cutie."

At the nickname, Vinny made a standoffish noise and rolled his eyes. "I don't want anything." He said.

"Yer lyin', Vinny. I t'ought w-we-we were friends, and f-friends 'r honest wit' each ot'er."

"What do _you_ know about honesty? You're a demon."

"Not all d-demons are liars."

"I don't believe you."

Sean threw up his clawed hands—all four of them—and turned to rest back against the bench, though he kept facing Vinny. "B-believe what ye will, but I'm tellin' t'e truth, and the t-tru-truth is t'at you're lonely, Vinny."

Vinny turned up his mouth and furrowed his brows, shifting his position towards Sean. "No I'm not. I've got friends."

"Just 'cause ye got fr-friends doesn't m-mean t'at yer not lonely."

"You sound like a fortune cookie."

Sean laughed, and Vinny couldn't help but chuckle with him. His laugh was a nice sound that stirred something inside of Vinny and made him slowly creep a little closer to him. 

"Yer funny, Vinny, I'll g-give ye t'at." Sean said with a smile. "I like you, so I'm g-gon-gonna cut ye a deal: you sign yer soul over t' me, and I'll be your f-friend fer as long as you live."

"How do I know you're not just gonna kill me once I agree?"

"I'm n-not allowed to kill t'e people I've got on c-contract, whet'er personally 'r t'rough s-some other d-demon. If I do, t'e contract is voided an' I lose a tier."

"Is that bad?"

"Fer a lesser demon l-li-like me, yea. T'e punishment is greater fer higher-ups."

"Mm." Vinny contemplated this a moment; would it really be so bad to have your soul in the clutches of a demon? Sean seemed like a nice enough guy. "What would you do with my soul? Hypothetically speaking."

"Not'in'. It's j-just a guarantee that y-you'll become a demon w-whe-when ye die."

That didn't seem so bad—

"'Fcourse, t'e contract comes w-wit' fine print."

"Of course."

"If ye sign, you're agreein' t-to possession, demon vision, yer life bein' for-forfeit, standard stuff."

"What's that mean?"

"In order fer me to po-possess a human, there has'ta be mutual agreement, me-meanin' t'at I can't possess ye if ya don't want me ta, and you ca-can-can't make me possess ya." Sean crossed his legs and moved closer to Vinny. "T'e contract just makes t'at agreement n-not necessary. As fer demon v-vision, it just means ye get t'e ability t' see the demon world whenever ye w-wa-want, which makes ye more o-open to attacks. Forfeit life means that any demon can k-kill ye at any time, just t' get my contract voided. I wouldn't w-worry about t'at too much, t'ough."

Vinny furrowed his brows. "Why?"

"'Cause I-I'll be t'ere t' protect ye."

For some reason, that made Vinny feel nice inside, like he'd just drank something warm. Sean must've seen that, because he smiled gently and cocked his head to the side a little. It was... cute, almost. Vinny shook that thought away. "Well, I guess it doesn't seem so bad. I just don't know what to wish for." He said.

"Ye c-can sign t'e contract and tell me yer w-wi-wish later, how's t'at?" Sean told him.

"That's fair." Vinny agreed, but then he paused. "You'll... still be around though, right? Like you won't just show up to save me from getting killed by another demon and then leave?"

Sean shrugged. "When-whenever ye want me around, I-I'll be t'ere."

Vinny nodded. He stared down at his lap for a moment, then looked back up at Sean with intense eyes. "I'm ready to sign."

Sean smiled and snapped his fingers, making a piece of parchment and a really cool pen appear in a spark of green flame. Vinny grabbed the pen, and when he did, it cut his thumb and drew in the blood as ink. "Ow!" He yelped. "Hey! Warn me next time!"

Sean shrugged, and Vinny glared. He grabbed the pen again, wary of any more pinpricks, and signed his name in his blood on the dotted line. Once he'd done that, the parchment and pen disappeared in another flash of fire. He looked up at Sean and saw that he was glowing and his horns were growing larger and longer, and his features were becoming more sinister. After a time, it stopped, and he opened his eyes. "It's done! T-t-t'ankya fer your time, Vinny." He said as he stood up. Vinny followed, for some reason worried that he was leaving. However, Sean stretched his many limbs and looked at him. "Where w-we headed?"

"Huh?" Vinny frowned. 

"You were gon-gonna go t' lunch after t'is, right? Where we goin'?"

"Oh. Uh, I was just gonna pick up something at the store."

"Sounds good t' me."

Sean bent down and petted Molly, who had warily come out from under the bench. Upon contact, she returned to her old, excited self and licked Sean's hand. "What a cute puppy." He said. "It's M-Molly, right?"

"Yeah." Vinny said.

"I was talk-talking to t'e dog."

"Oh."

Sean stood back up straight and smiled. "L-le-let's go."

 

The store that Vinny had talked of was a farmer's market a couple blocks from his apartment, though in the opposite direction. He walked through the stalls and picked out some fruit to snack on while he browsed, buying some for him and Sean, who politely declined and bought some himself. "Here you are, sir." The lady handed Sean the bag of pomegranates with a smile. "Have a nice day!"

"You too." Sean said, also smiling. 

Vinny looked at him in bewilderment, prompting Sean to explain. "They s-see me as how I usedta look as a hu-human." He told him.

"Hmm. What'd you look like? Still had the green hair, I'm assuming."

Sean nodded and began to shimmer, his figure changing to that of a small, pale man with beautiful blue eyes, thick brows, pink lips, a goatee/beard hybrid, and green and greying brown hair, with a long sleeve shirt pushed up to his elbows that really accentuated his figure, along with a pair of worn jeans that shaped his legs fantastically. The imagery was gone in an instant, though, and Vinny was back to staring at the demon. "You were..." He mumbled.

"I was what?" Sean asked.

Vinny felt his face warm and looked away. "...Nothing. I need granola."

After they got the granola, they headed back to Vinny's apartment while they ate it. When they arrived, Sean crashed on the sofa while Vinny put his food away, glancing over at him to see that he was now perusing Vinny's selection of musical equipment, poking the synthesizer and jumping a little when it made a sound. Vinny couldn't help but chuckle some at that, pausing in his actions to say, "That's my synth."

Sean looked up in question. "What?"

"That thing is a synthesizer. I use it to make effects and sounds in my music."

"Oh." Sean stared at it a moment, then looked back at Vinny. "Can y-you show me how t-to-to use it?"

Vinny's insides twisted upon hearing those words. "Yeah, sure. Just let me finish putting these away."

Sean snapped his fingers and the food flew into the fridge and pantry while Vinny watched, more annoyed than amazed at the feat; twisting up his mouth, he looked over at Sean and said, "You couldn't have just waited?" 

Sean shrugged as Vinny walked over to him, twisting one of the knobs on the end of the synth as he replied quietly, "Just trynna he-he-help."

Vinny stuck his hands in his pockets, his shoulders scrunching up. "Sorry. Thanks for helping I guess."

Sean snorted, a bit of smoke and flame coming out of his nose. "Whatever. Just show-show me how t'a u-u-use t'is t'ing."

"Yeah, alright." 

Vinny pointed to a few buttons and told Sean what they were. "That's the power button, that one controls the volume, there's speed and tempo, that one gives it a warbling sorta effect, that one changes genre—"

"Can you sh-show me?" Sean cut him off, pulling up a stool without touching it.

"I suppose I could."

There was a soft click as Vinny pressed the power button, the LED next to it glowing green and all the lights around the knobs turning a sort of greenish-blue colour. He pressed the record switch and played a small tune on the keyboard, then played it back on repeat and began to mess with more knobs, twisting them to change the melody into something completely different and dreamlike, to match Vinny's taste in music. He could see Sean out of the corner of his eye watching him— or not, he couldn't really tell, since Sean didn't have any pupils or irises. But in any case, he continued to play with the synthesizer until he thought he had something presentable, then looked to Sean and turned up the volume enough for him to hear clearly, but not enough to drown out his voice. "Did you get what I was doing?" He asked. 

Sean nodded and smiled, Vinny swallowing thickly at the sight of his vicious teeth that were shown off because of the action. "T'at's p-pre-pretty cool, dude. I've always l-liked music engineering, it's s-so technical 'n precise." He told him.

"I've been making music for a really long time, but I still don't really know what I'm doing. I make something, and if it sounds okay to me, then I did good, or—" Vinny turned off his synth, his left hand lingering over the controls. "—at least that's what I think."

Sean patted Vinny's arm. "Don't d-doubt yerself so much, Vin," He said. "I'm sure yer music i-is great!"

The hand was still on his arm, and it was all Vinny could feel or see— it was warm, almost hot, but not uncomfortably so; the claws were poking him with some slight pain, which started to awaken the masochist inside of him. He felt his face heat up and cleared his throat inaudibly, mumbling a thanks to Sean before moving to tear his arm away. However, Sean wouldn't let go, instead moving to grab him by both wrists, tightening his grip enough to not allow Vinny to move. Vinny's eyes widened, his heart rate speeding up, hands becoming clammy and cold. "What?" His voice was still oddly steady.

A low, pink glow haloed around Sean, his bushy eyebrows dipped and mouth slightly parted. Vinny could hear him breathing heavily, which was strange since he wouldn't think a demon would need to breathe. Sean leaned in to Vinny, so close he could feel the heat radiating off of him, and said in a low tone, "How long ha-has it been?"

"Huh?" Vinny asked.

"How long has it been since ya've b-been with some-someone t' be turned on by m-me touching you?"

Vinny furrowed his brows and yanked his arms to try and free himself. "No I'm not, what the fuck?"

There was a low, almost purring sort of hum resonating from Sean's throat, which only made Vinny more concerned for his safety. "I know you're a demon, Sean, but please don't hurt me."

The grips on his wrists loosened and the pink aura dissipated, along with Sean cocking his head to the side. _"Hurtcha?_ Vinny," He slid his hands down Vinny's arms to rest on his shoulders. "We're friends, a-and friends don't hurt ea-each other, right?"

Vinny nodded. "Yeah... you're right. Then... what are you doing?" 

"Just wanted t'a help ye a little bit, yknow? If you're a little... fru-frustrated, I could help ye out..."

For some reason, that thought made Vinny extremely flustered, so he took a couple steps back. "No, I'm okay, thank you though," 

Sean shrugged. "Okay, if ye s-say so."

Vinny turned around and rubbed a hand over his face; maybe signing a contract with this guy—er, demon, wasn't such a grand idea.

+

"Welcome to the stream, guys. It's beennn... about three days since my last stream? Sorry about the wait, I've been really busy lately, which is weird for me. Actually, it's not all that weird, I've just been—" Vinny paused to stretch. "At the studio, shopping, selling my soul to demons; the usual, I guess. But anyway, I'm back now, and I've got more uh, weird games for you guys, some Fallout, maybe a little shameless Bandcamp promo before it. Also, uh, I've got a... roommate? Sorta? But he's going to probably be coming in and out so don't mind him, if you hear him or hear me talking to him." Vinny started up the game and set up the capture, checking the chat as he did. "His name? Uh, Sean, or also Jack, is another name he goes by."

Once he had everything set up, he checked chat once more. "'Vinesauce is your roommate the ghost of Jacksepticeye the Youtuber'?" Vinny frowned. "Jacksepticeye? Who is that?" He read more of the chat. "'Jack was a Youtuber who died in a plane crash flying back from a convention a few months back'. Oh. Did he uh, happen to have green hair by any chance?" 

Vinny read lots of "Yeah"'s and raised his brows. "Mhm, okay, yeah. Crazy coincidence I guess. But yeah, let's get started on this fuckin' game, guys."

 

About an hour into the stream, Jack came back from walking Molly with a red bag in his hand. "Hey Vinny! Whatche doin'?" He asked, pulling up a chair and sitting next to him at the computer. 

"Hey Jack. I'm streaming a game." Vinny told him. "Say hi to Sean, guys." Everyone in the chat said hi, except for a few that said he sounded exactly like that one Irish Youtuber. "They say hi, Jack."

"How's it go-goin', nerds?" Jack said into the mic. "D'ya guys like listening t' t'is douchebag fer hours?"

"Why are you kinkshaming me, Jack? Get out of here." Vinny pushed him away from the mic. 

Jack put the bag in Vinny's lap. "Here, I gotche a little somet'in' w-while I was walkin' Mol-Molly."

"Really? That's nice of you. I'll look at it in a second, okay?"

"Sure. I'll go ov-over-over t'ere, you do yer t'ing."

Jack patted him on the shoulder as he got up and left for the sofa, Vinny having a feeling he knew that would rile him up. Clearing his throat, Vinny set the bag aside and went back to the stream. "Sorry for the interruption, let's get back into it."

 

After the Bandcamp promo, Vinny put up the brb and muted his mic so he could check what Jack had gotten him; the bag was red, which was weird, Vinny had never seen that before, and whatever was inside was in a small, kind of flat box. He took the cardboard container out of the bag and found that it was blacked out on all sides, so he couldn't tell what it was. "I hope you like it, Vi-Vinny." Jack told him from the sofa, where he was petting Molly.

"What is it?" Vinny asked, using his scissors to cut the tape off.

"Y-you'll have to o-op-open it 'n find out."

Vinny shrugged and opened the flaps of the box, digging around inside the packing peanuts to find something kind of smooth but also with a slight texture and cold on some parts— which made him frown. "What is this..?"  
He grabbed the object and pulled it out to find himself holding a spiked choker. Turning it over, he looked to Jack with an infinitely confused expression.

"D'ye like it? I saw-saw it while I w-wa-was out 'n t'ought of you!" Jack told him with a dangerous grin— those teeth, yeesh. However, his voice was as excited as could be and Vinny couldn't help but smile a little.

"Thanks, Jack. It's pretty cool. Wanna, uh," Vinny shifted his weight. "Help me put it on?"

Jack jumped up after setting Molly aside and did a weird run up to him, smiling and hopping in place and taking the choker before stepping behind him with it. The hairs on the back of Vinny's neck stood on end in anticipation of something touching it, and soon it did, him hearing the jangle of the buckle on the choker as Jack undid it and wrapped it around his neck. There was a moment when Jack adjusted the size before buckling it, Vinny then saying quietly, "Thanks, Jack," 

Jack didn't say anything in reply, only resting his hands on Vinny's shoulders, his claws nipping at his skin through his shirt and hands tightening and loosening their grip. "You look n-ni-nice." He said, the tone of his voice setting Vinny on edge.

He balled his fists and turned around, which consequently freed him of Jack's hold. "Thanks. I'm gonna get a drink and then keep streaming."

Slowly, Jack lowered his arms and gave a nod. "Okay. Have fun." He mumbled.

Vinny didn't reply and instead moved past him to go to the kitchen and get a bottle of Amaretto to take with him back to his desk— he also grabbed a glass tumbler to pour his alcohol into, so that he didn't drink too much; this stuff wasn't cheap, plus it tasted too good to waste. Once he had that and a small bowl of ice to put in his drink, he made his way back to his chair and sat down, putting his headphones back on and unmuting his mic. "Ok, I'm back. I've got my bottle of Amaretto with me, too, 'cause why not." He checked the chat as he removed the cap from the bottle and poured the bronze liquid into his glass of ice. "'You didn't mute your mic Vinny'. What?" There was a lump in his throat as he spoke. "'You muted the brb music not your mic'. Oh, whoops. Well, you guys got to hear me unbox Jack's gift for me." He capped the alcohol and set it aside, taking a long drink of the Amaretto from his glass to calm his jittery nerves. Now significantly more calm, he changed the webcam to his facecam and held it up to his neck, turning it on on Twitch so the people in chat could see it. "What do you guys think? Is it _me?"_ He asked and laughed his high-pitched titter with his eyes on the chat. He read lots of people saying "kinky" and "what the fuck", along with a couple saying "what kind of gift is that for a roommate to get you". Mostly, though, people were telling him they liked it and that it looked good on him. "Yeah, I think I look pretty badass. Really completes the whole 'musician' look, don't you think? Now all I need is a Green Day tattoo and unnaturally coloured hair." He switched the webcam back to the desktop and set the facecam back on the computer tower. "Anyway, who's ready for some more Fallout 4? Maybe we'll actually get to more of the main storyline this time."

+

It was 3am by the time Vinny finished with the stream; the art alone took over half an hour since he didn't check it between games, and he was soooo tired. Moving as though underwater, he made his way to his bathroom and peed, then brushed his teeth and splashed water on his face before staggering over to his bed and falling down onto it. He was out like a light within minutes, even though he was cold since he hadn't covered himself with a blanket.

A brief moment later, he awoke to the feeling of the bed moving next to him, the mattress dipping with the weight of someone or some _thing_ getting into his bed behind him, as he was lying on his side facing the closet. His breath stopped in his throat and his eyes shot open wide. A second later, a voice said, "It's ju-jus-just me, Vinny..." In a low whisper. The intruder, now identified as Jack, pulled the blanket up onto the both of them and scooted up close behind him, the heat like a flood of water covering him fully. It was comforting, in a way, and drained the adrenaline out of his system. He turned around to face Jack, trying to look annoyed but failing due to how tired he was. "What are y' doing in my bed, Sean?" He asked quietly.

"I t'ought y' could use t-t'e company, a-and ye looked col-cold." Jack answered.

Vinny made a noise of disbelief, which faded halfway through since he honestly didn't have the energy to protest. "Just don't touch me while I'm sleepin'..." 

"I wouldn't d-dream of it."

Vinny drifted back off to sleep, the weight of an arm around him giving him a reassurance of safety.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new demon and an old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was tired of looking at this in my notes so I decided to shove out a half-decent ending

Waking up to the sight of a person with six eyes and horns laying across from him would've startled Vinny on a normal basis, but he was far too tired to be alarmed since it was 8am and he'd only been asleep for five hours, which wasn't nearly long enough. "Hey..." He grumbled almost incoherently. 

"Go back t' sleep, Vinny," Jack whispered, softly caressing Vinny's right cheek. 

Vinny closed his eyes and turned up his mouth. "Stop doin' that, it feels weird..."

But Jack didn't stop, and Vinny didn't do anything to make him, falling back asleep soon afterwards.

 

Around 12 in the afternoon, he woke up to the smell of smoke, which thankfully wasn't all that strong but still worrying. He sat up and almost fell out of bed trying to stand due to how worn out his limbs felt, somehow managing to get upright and out into the kitchen, whereupon he discovered Jack to be standing in front of the sink, holding a very burned pan under the full blast of water coming from the faucet. "What happened?" He asked, still sort of sleepy. 

Jack turned his head back to look at Vinny. "Hey! Mornin'! 'r, afterno-noon, rat'er." He turned back to the pan and set it down, snapping his fingers, the dishes and stove beginning to clean themselves while Jack walked up to Vinny. "I tried t'e cook w-without usin' my—" He wiggled his fingers to show that he meant his demon powers. 

Vinny eyed the mess he'd made—which was still being cleaned up—and nodded. "Mhm... So this is cooking."

"I was trying t'a make y-you somet'in', but if yer gonna be like t'at I guess ye c-can just—"

Vinny held up his hand. "Sorry. Thank you, Jack." 

Jack huffed. "Go wake up, asshole, the food'll b-be ready by t'e t-ti-time ye get back."

Turning up his mouth, Vinny went back from whence he came and into the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face, deciding that his beard could go another day without a trim and shuffled into his room to change into a fresh t-shirt and pants, which he'd accidentally slept in. A shower could wait until later.

Now fresh to death, he walked out to the kitchen, and sure enough, Jack had lunch and also breakfast set out on the coffee table with placemats under each plate so as not to ruin the table. Jack looked his way from where he sat on the sofa facing the door to the patio, giving Molly a piece of breakfast sausage, which Vinny didn't remember buying. "Hungry?" Jack asked with a toothy smile.

"I could eat." Vinny replied, making his way around to sit beside Jack, shooing Molly out of his spot and into the floor. Immediately, she hopped back into his lap, which Vinny didn't really mind, but he did want to eat without getting dog hair in his food, so he set her back on the floor and grabbed a plate, surveying the array of breakfast and lunch items set out before him like a buffet arrangement. "This looks good, Jack, thank you." He said.

"Yer welcome. I made e-extra fer later." Jack told him.

"Oh. Thoughtful."

Jack smiled. Vinny managed one in return; why was he being so nice? What ulterior motive did he have? What he'd said yesterday came to mind: wanting to help him if he was frustrated, or something along those lines. 'Is he buttering me up so I'll have sex with him?' Vinny thought as he took a slice of toast with butter and jam from a plate and munched on it slowly. He stared pensively at a glass of orange juice. 'Why would he do that though? Maybe he's just being nice to be nice. I mean, he said he was gonna be my friend, right?' 

Vinny nodded slowly to himself, chewing the last bit of his slice of toast. 'Yeah, that makes sense.' 

Movement to his right caught his eye and he turned to look, finding Jack staring at him with his chin resting on the heel of his palm, his elbow on his lower thigh just above his knee. "T'inkin' about me?" He asked.

Vinny shook his head, grabbing another slice of toast. "Not really." 

Jack cocked his head to the side in that cute way he did, making a humming noise behind closed lips. Vinny tore his eyes away and kept eating.

After the breakfast/lunch hybrid, Vinny helped Jack put the rest of the food into Tupperwares to be eaten at a later date, then sat at his desk to work on a song— well, tune it a little, it was already pretty complete, he just felt it needed a tiny bit more. "Would You Believe Me" was the name of it; probably one of his favourite songs that he'd ever mixed alone. The revised version was for the album he and his band were releasing sometime within his lifetime, so he was going to tweak it to as good as it was gonna get before then and then stop messing with it. 

He was working on the effects in the background when Jack came over, poking his head and horns into Vinny's field of vision. "Whatcha doin'?" He asked.

Vinny pushed him out of his personal space so he could reply. "I'm tweaking a song for the album my band is working on."

Jack's expression became infinitely interested. "Oh? W-would you care to show me?"

"Like, the song, or..?"

"Sing it for me."

Oh. Vinny twisted up his mouth and thought a moment, then clicked on a few things in his audio mixer. "Sure, I suppose I could." He agreed; he made sure he muted the vocals in the song and tweaked a few effects before he started the song over from the beginning so he could sing. 

Every once in a while, as he sang, he looked up from his guitar to gauge Jack's expression— seeing if he liked it or not, among other things. He couldn't really read Jack's expression, so he flitted his eyes away and back down at his guitar, which he didn't really need to look at considering he'd been playing the guitar for most of his life, but he didn't want to close his eyes like he usually did, more out of some underlying fear of Jack than anything. He wasn't one to scare easily, but there was something about Sean that set off all of his mental alarms, albeit in his subconscious. So, yeah, he kept his eyes open for now.

The song was finished and Vinny set his guitar aside. "What'd you think?" He asked.

"It sounded great! Wh-what is it t'at yer lookin' t' fix?" Jack asked, inching closer to Vinny.

The action did not go unnoticed by Vinny and he scooted slowly away. "Some effects, might change some chords— minor stuff."

Jack gave a nod; his two lower arms rested on his thighs while his upper (or, rather, normal) ones supported his head as he leaned back in his chair, observing Vinny with a look he didn't like. Vinny shifted in his seat and shot a disgruntled expression Jack's way. "Can you go? I need to work." He requested.

"Do ye w-want me too?" Jack asked in reply.

"Why else would I be asking?"

Jack shrugged all four shoulders. Vinny rolled his eyes. "Go, please?"

"I s'ppose..." Jack stood up and headed towards the kitchen, likely getting something to eat, though why a demon would even need to eat in the first place was beyond Vinny. Regardless, he swiveled back to face his computer and set to work on the song.

 

Some time later, around when he'd finished tuning the synth effects and some chords, there was a knock at his door. "Want me t' ge-get-get it?" Jack asked, not lifting his gaze from his phone.

"No, I got it." Vinny replied. He stood up from his desk chair and shuffled across the room to his front door, peeking through the peephole to see his friend Joel standing on the other side, putting a cigarette out on the heel of his left shoe and sticking what was left through the mail slot of one of Vinny's neighbor's doors. Vinny shook his head as he unlocked and opened his door, one eyebrow slightly cocked, which changed his whole expression since he was usually pretty stoic. "You're gonna get me in trouble if you keep doing that." He told him.

Joel shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets. "I don't know what you're talking about, man." He replied—his Nordic accent wasn't strong, but it was definitely there, in the way he said some words, and because of how he looked: light brown, kind of dirty looking hair that reached past his shoulders, pale blue eyes, his black metal band shirt, ripped and worn jeans, and dirty sneakers. If there was anyone who looked more Swedish, Vinny seriously doubted it. In any case, he invited Joel in with a sweep of his arm, closing and locking the door behind him out of habit. "Oh, I didn't know you had someone over." Joel commented. 

Vinny turned around to find Joel standing a couple feet from the sofa that Jack was reclined on, the two of them staring at each other. "Right, that's my uh, roommate, Jack, or Sean. Jack, this is my friend Joel." He introduced. 

"Joel, huh? Yer na-name sounds kinda familiar." Jack said, sitting up with a hand out.

Joel shook the offered hand. "It's pretty common, I guess." He said. "Nice to meet you, anyway."

"L-likewise."

Vinny was about to say something when Jack's phone went off. Jack checked it, then got up. "I gotta take t'is, y-you two enjoy yerselves." And with that, he left the apartment.

Vinny shifted his weight and eyed where Jack used to be, his mouth moving of its own volition. "Joel, can I tell you something?"

Joel nodded. "Sure Vin, what is it?"

"What if I told you that... Jack was a demon, and that I sold my soul to him for a wish?"

"I'd tell you that you were a fuckin' dumbass and that you need to stop fuckin' smoking shit."

Vinny let out an airy laugh that was more of a huff than anything. "Yeah."

Someone death claw-gripped his shoulder and turned him ninety degrees, coming face-to-face with Joel, whose blue eyes were glaring daggers into his eye sockets. "Vinny." Joel said bluntly. "Are you trying to fucking tell me that that tiny ass Irish fuckin' dude is a demon."

Vinny shrugged, which wasn't smart since the grip on his right shoulder caused a shooting pain to run through his arm when he did. It was kind of thrilling, but Vinny didn't have time for that right now. "Maybe." He replied.

The Death Grip™ spread to his other shoulder now. Joel's countenance was more serious than Vinny had ever seen it, which wasn't much since this was only his roughly fourth or fifth time seeing Joel's face in the years he'd known him. "Vinny." Joel's voice was as good of a growl as he could get it since he didn't have much range or vocal practice. "Did you sell your soul to him."

The question wasn't much of one, rather a statement that had "You're a fucking idiot" undertones; Vinny slowly nodded once, giving a slight shrug that didn't hurt this time. He was almost disappointed. "I might've."

"For what? What could've been so fuckin' important that you sold your fucking soul for it?!"

Another shrug. "Haven't asked for anything yet."

"So you've just got a fucking _demon_ runnin' around your apartment? What the fuck, Vinny!" Joel threw his hands up, a smirk cracking across his face. "I've gotta visit you more often!"

Vinny raised a brow. "You don't think I'm lying?"

"When have you ever lied to me, or anyone? It's not like you. Besides, man," Joel began, running a hand through his hair. "I may or may not have had a _close encounter_ of my own."

"Yeah?" Vinny stuffed his hands in his pockets. "What'd you wish for?"

Joel laughed kind of nervously, scratching his head and shifting his gaze from Vinny to the patio and then back. "To be someone else."

Vinny had kind of figured that was the answer. However... "But you haven't changed at all."

Joel's laugh was more humorous this time. "He made me a different offer, I suppose."

Before Vinny could pry further, Jack appeared in the room without opening the front door, along with what Vinny was assuming was another demon who looked suspiciously like— 

"Hey Mark!" Joel perked up and waved at Mark, apparently, Mark casting his five pupil-less over Joel and throwing up the peace sign upon seeing him. 

"Joel," He greeted, in that voice that Vinny was oh so familiar with, as he'd meet the man back when he was alive; still had the blue hair, unsurprisingly. It was surprising that he was a demon, though, but then again he didn't know him personally, so he could've earned the position. Anyway, Mark practically glided over to Joel on his four legs and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "How are you, my Swedish sweet?" He asked, tone silky smooth.

"I'm okay I guess. Where've you been?" Joel asked, shifting his weight under Mark's arm.

"Around." Mark answered, his eyes, pale and empty, seemed to shift, as Vinny felt a chill run up his spine before Mark said, "This is Vinny? Hmph. I thought he'd be bigger."

Vinny shrugged. "Even when you were alive, I was still taller than you." He commented.

"Oh, you knew me when I was a meatbag? Lucky you, I bet I was fucking annoying." 

Vinny was about to reply in the negative, but Jack cut in with: "Alright you two, g-ge-get outta here, Vinny an' I 're busy."

Mark rolled his eyes and held up his hand. "Say 'bye', Joel." He said.

"See ya, Vinny, back in a few." Joel said, nodding to Vinny, who waved.

"Bye, Joel."

Mark snapped his fingers and was gone, along with Joel, in a puff of reddish smoke. Hands on his hips, Vinny looked to Jack quizzically to find him not staring in his direction, eyes instead on the ground and his four hands, which he was fidgeting with in front of him. "I don't li-like bein' around Mark fer too long," He stated. "Makes me uncomfortable."

Vinny strode over to his desk chair and sat down, swirling around to face his computer once more. "When I knew him, he was different." He told Jack.

"Did you like him?" The question was followed by the clicking of Jack's hooves on Vinny's wood floors, moving closer to him; as a result, Vinny tensed subconsciously.

"He was nice enough, very friendly. A cool guy." Was Vinny's response.

When Jack spoke, it was from behind him, though not too close. "Y' didn't answer me question."

Vinny let out an inaudible sigh and looked to the ceiling before pivoting around and facing Jack, who was sat on the arm rests of one of the sofas, watching him with empty eyes and a flickering tail. Twisting up his mouth, Vinny told him, "Yeah, I guess I did. Like I said, he was nice." A pause, then— "Why do you care, anyway?"

Jack began to hover above the sofa, and then proceeded to recline in midair, hands behind his head, floating away from where Vinny sat observing him, brow raised. "No particular rea-reason."

'Whatever.' Vinny thought, turning a 180 back to his computer; he didn't have timed for cryptic demons right now, he was almost done with this song, and God forbid he put finishing it off for another day. Sighing more heavily this time, he put his headphones back over his ears and started back on tuning his music.

+

He awoke some time later to a dark sky outside and to the feeling of Jack picking him up; there were hands and arms cocooning his body, cradling him close to Jack's chest with his hands and right cheek resting against it—bit of an awkward position since Jack was shorter than Vinny and more lean, but with his many arms, Vinny felt safe from being dropped. However... "Pu' me down..." He grumbled, patting Jack's chest lightly. 

The chuckle that Jack released, Vinny felt shake through him. "You f-fell asleep working on a so-song, 'm jest takin' ye t' b-bed." Jack told him, walking slowly towards the bedroom.

"Don't have to carry me..." Vinny said as he tried to push away from Jack.

"I'm almost to y' r-room, just wait a li'l."

Vinny didn't have the energy nor the strength to fight back, so he simply allowed himself to be settled into bed and tucked in once Jack had climbed in behind him, feeling the weight of two of Jack's four arms settle around him. "Jack..." He whispered in protest, or at least did his best to.

Jack made a questioning noise, but didn't remove his arms. Vinny sighed and adjusted his position. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Vinny."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mixed feelings.png

The dream he had that night was... interesting, to say the least.

It was sort of a pick-up from when he'd fallen asleep, starting right after he'd closed his eyes; the heat from Jack behind him was covering him in a more real sense than the blanket that was over him, if that made any sense. He never wanted to leave it.

"Vinny," Jack said in a low voice, his tone sending shivers up and down Vinny's spine. 

"Yeah?" Vinny mumbled—he'd been tired before Jack spoke, but now he was more awake.

Jack said nothing in response, Vinny instead feeling himself being pulled closer to Jack, flush up against his chest and wrapped tighter in his arms. The action prompted Vinny's whole body to heat up, his eyes widening to the point where he was sure they'd pop right out of their sockets. "Jack, whaaat are you doing?" He asked, tone not betraying how nervous he actually felt.

"I w-wa-want you close t' me, is all..." Jack whispered; with the new, close distance, Vinny could smell his breath—a freshly lit fireplace, along with an almost unpleasant undertone of burnt plastic. His heart was slowly picking up the pace of its beating, and he wished as hard as he could that Jack didn't feel or hear it. As a result of that increased heart rate, his breathing became more labored, which Jack, apparently, _did_ notice. "What's t'e p-pro-problem, Vinny?" He asked, working one of his hands up Vinny's shirt. "Hmm?"

Vinny shuddered but couldn't find it in him to do anything about that, so he just said, "I don't, think you should... uh..."

Before he could say any more, Jack began to kiss his neck, the intense heat against such a sensitive part of his body knocking a moan out of him on the exhale he released. "Shit, Jack," He hissed, one hand grabbing at the arm across his chest and the other at his shirt. "Don't–!"

But Jack didn't stop, in fact he turned those kisses open-mouthed and licked up and down Vinny's neck, Vinny's mouth falling open wider and wider with each drag of Jack's tongue across his soft skin. He was groaning and making embarrassing noises, them only becoming louder and more embarrassing when Jack made his shirt disappear. "Jack—" He gasped, all four of Jack's hands grabbing and touching all over his exposed skin. "I don't- we shouldn't, really be..." 

"I know y-you want it, Vi-Vinny," Jack growled. "I can sense yer e-ev-every desire, yaknow..." Slowly, he raked his claws up Vinny's side, drawing a low, pleasured groan from Vinny, who arched outwards. "I want ye, too." Was growled into Vinny's ear.

At that point, Vinny woke up to find himself nearly hyperventilating and grabbing at his bedsheet and pillow, his heart pounding in his ears and hair sticking to his forehead and the back of his neck. He could feel Jack's name dying in the back of his throat, just before it could be uttered; he couldn't help but wonder if he'd said it out loud earlier while he'd been asleep. 

"Vinny," 

The startlingly loud sound of Jack's voice speaking to him shook Vinny out of his thoughts. He sat up, but didn't look at Jack. "What?" He responded.

He felt—and heard—Jack sit up and lean close to him. "What was I doin' t' ya in yer dream?" He questioned.

Outwardly, Vinny shrugged and checked his phone, saying, "I don't remember." Inwardly, his mind was still running over every aspect of the dream at light speed, keeping his heart rate elevated and, consequently, him from looking at Jack directly. He got up from bed and headed into the bathroom so he could shower, grabbing some clothes off the foot of the bed as he went; he could feel eyes on him and he knew who they belonged to, the gaze sending goosebumps across his skin. 

Once he was in the bathroom, he closed and locked the door, which allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief and take off his pajama pants, his half-boner now more noticeable as a result. Looking down at it would only mean acknowledging that it was there, so he just outright ignored that he had it and stripped down to his birthday suit, turning the left knob before getting in the shower. The hot water melted the goosebumps away and soothed his wracked nerves, also lessening the ache that plagued his joints and back due to age. Regardless of if he was only thirty, being a streamer and a musician would definitely put some strain on your bones, no matter your age, and him being past his twenties really didn't help. In any case, he stood under the blast of hot water and allowed himself to relax, if only for a while, not wanting to run the water bill up by being in it for too long. He quickly washed his hair and body and trimmed his beard, knowing he needed to also trim down there but deciding it best to ignore that part of his body for now. Instead, he turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, and grabbed a towel from the rack to dry off, keeping as much contact away from his crotch as he possible could, which surprisingly wasn't easy; once he was sufficiently dry, he put his deodorant and clothes on, brushed his teeth, and then left the bathroom so he could slip on his socks and shoes. He, Mike, and his other band members had studio time today for mixing the songs on their first album—they were only on their third song, and even with how fast they were working, the album wasn't going to be ready for release until probably mid-fall or early winter, so that meant booking as much studio time as possible in order to even attempt an earlier release date. 

So lost in thought was Vinny that he didn't even realize he was more than halfway through breakfast already and standing in the middle of his kitchen while eating, Jack watching him from where he was hovering cross-legged above the back of the sofa. Blinking a little to clear himself from his daze, Vinny set his plate down and turned away to get a drink. "I'll be at the studio for most of today." He told Jack; a short moment after, he heard the clacking of Jack's hooves against the hard kitchen tile and tensed. They stopped behind him.

"I'm gonna b-be-be alone all d-day?" Jack mumbled.

Vinny nodded as he filled his cup with water and two ice cubes, turning around but staying as far away from Jack as he could. "You can teleport or whatever, so I'm just going to assume that you'll be following me anyway." He said.

Jack did a half-shrug and half-nod; a reasonable assumption on Vinny's part. Still, Vinny could sense that Jack was iffy about being left alone in the apartment—wasn't like he could do anything about it since non-musicians weren't allowed in the studio, and besides, he didn't really want Jack there, anyway, so he just downed the rest of his water and headed for the door, grabbing his keys from the ashtray on the bar counter. "See ya, Jack." He called over his shoulder; in a dick move, he didn't wait for a reply before closing the door behind him.

He'd barely made it out to the curb to watch for his cab when Jack texted him, _'I hope ur studio sesh goes well'_

He turned up his mouth a little, his thumb hovering over the keyboard. After a second or two, he replied with, _'Thank you. I hope you can find something to occupy yourself while im gone.'_

He received no response in the few minutes it took for his cab to arrive, soon forgetting about the conversation due to other thoughts occupying his mind, mostly music related, like how much synth he wanted in the ending part of the song they were working on today. That train of thought led back to the events that had transpired last night, with Jack carrying him to bed after he fell asleep mixing his music; as much as he hated to dwell on it for so long, it gave him a... warm feeling in his gut, to think of Jack caring for him in such a way. He hadn't felt that for a really, really long time, and to be entirely honest, he sort of missed it—having someone care about him that much, that is. 'Yeah, that's probably it.' He thought.

"We're here." The driver announced, snapping Vinny back to reality. He got out of the cab, thanked them, and tossed them the money they were owed with an attempted, closed-lip smile that got him a weird look. 

"That was embarrassing." He mumbled to himself as he quickly turned away from the cab and entered the recording studio, hands in the pockets of his jacket. 

Inside the building, he checked in with his manager and hung up his coat on the coat rack as he talked to him, numbers and other boring stuff that Vinny didn't have time for. "Sounds great, man, do whatever Mike tells you to." Was his answer, as always—the technical garbage that didn't involve music wasn't his forté, that was Mike's department. Once his manager had left him alone, he joined his bandmates in the audio engineering center.

+

Around seven in the evening was when he finally arrived back home after a long, somewhat challenging day of mixing songs; well, _song,_ but regardless, Vinny was hungry and worn out, his main goal at this point in time being a late dinner and a nap on the sofa before he had to stream in a couple hours. As he entered his apartment, he thought about just not streaming and going to bed early, but then he thought of Jack probably wanting to sleep in the bed next to him and decided that being tired on-stream was something he preferred way more than... that.

"Hey, V-Vinny. How'd the-the-the session go?" 

Vinny came to a halt beside the kitchen at the sound of Jack speaking to him and turned to his left where he'd heard the voice coming from. Upon seeing Jack floating in the air and watching him, pale eyes glowing in the dark, he took a step away and replied, "What, you didn't follow me?" 

Jack shook his head slowly once. "I sensed ya di-didn't want me there."

'He actually listened for once.' Vinny thought absently. "Hmm. Well, it went okay," He began, continuing on down the hall to his room. "We got another song finished, sorta. Would've liked to have started on the next one, but another band needed the space."

He began to change his clothes from his casual wear into his pajamas, the fact that Jack was probably watching him slipping his mind as it wandered into music like it usually did. However, just as he had stripped down to his underwear and socks, the feeling of eyes on his bare back caused him to pause and turn around—Sure enough, there Jack was, sitting on the foot of the bed watching him change in the dim light of the bedside lamp. Vinny shifted his weight and did his best not to show how flustered and uncomfortable he felt with Jack seeing him mostly naked, opting to grab his pajama pants and shirt and head for the bathroom. "You should've told me you were going to follow me." He told him in a blunt tone.

Small pillars of smoke billowed out of Jack's nose as he responded, "Do-don't act like ye didn't kn-know-know I was gon-gonna walk after ye," 

Vinny couldn't refute the argument, so he just didn't say anything as he walked to the bathroom with his clothes; no sooner had he reached the door that he felt a hand grab his forearm in a gentle grasp, stopping him and turning him around to face Jack, who was unbearably close to him. His heart leapt into his throat and his stomach did flips, breath hitching in his chest. "Please," Was all he could manage to say.

There was something in those six empty eyes that made Vinny shrink. Jack let go of Vinny's arm and instead let it travel up to his chest and down to settle on his hips. "Please wh-wha-what?" He asked in a voice too gentle for Vinny's liking.

Vinny didn't know what to say—he didn't even know _why_ he'd said "please" in the first place, only that it seemed appropriate somehow. Was he asking permission to do something? Had he been begging Jack to do or not do something, subconsciously? What? He honestly didn't know, the only thing certain in his mind right now being his desire to not be so close to Jack, with their noses almost touching and legs between each other's. If Jack moved a couple inches, his thigh would be riding up against Vinny's crotch. Why that was his first thought, Vinny would never know. Swallowing, lips parted to allow himself to pant slightly, he looked at Jack and said in a quiet voice, "Can... can you please let go of me?"

In typical demon fashion, Jack rebutted with, "Is t'at what y-ye really want?"

There was some hesitation on Vinny's part. For some reason, he couldn't find the word he needed, and apparently that was what Jack had been waiting for. In slow motion, Vinny watched as Jack closed the gap between them and pressed his lips to his; they were soft, almost too much so, and so incredibly warm, fitting against his in such a way as to easily part his lips and let Jack's tongue slip into his mouth, right up against his. Vinny let out a noise he didn't know he was capable of making and almost immediately shut himself up by pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth, effectively preventing any more noise from coming from there. A deep growl rumbled forth from Jack and shook Vinny straight to his core like a stake to the heart, goosebumps flaring up across his skin as though a cold breeze had just blown through. He was trembling as Jack kept up his authority in the heated kiss, drool running in two lines out of the corners of his mouth and down his neck to tickle his chest—Jesus, he couldn't think straight, there was so much happening both mentally and physically that he didn't even realize he'd begun to kiss back until he heard Jack make some kind of mewling noise that sent shivers running up and down his spine. By now, he could feel how tight his boxers had become due to his hard-on straining against the fabric, and could feel the lust rising to the surface from deep inside him. 'Fuck, what am I doing?' He thought desperately as Jack began to press up against him and use his tail to wrap around one of his ankles, their kiss still going strong. Vinny had his hands in Jack's hair and wrapped around his neck to grip the opposite shoulder, like he was clinging to him, something he couldn't remember doing. Digging his nails into Jack's skin, he shifted his arms to instead push him away, saliva connecting their shiny lips and basically lower parts of their faces together. He shook his head in quick little bursts and couldn't look at Jack directly. "I can't do this, I can't," He breathed out, "I-I just—I can't."

"Vinny—"

Before he could hear any more, Vinny turned around and opened the bathroom door, quickly slipping inside and locking it, though that was no defense against teleportation. He'd forgotten his pajamas on the bedroom floor where he'd dropped them outside, but he honestly couldn't bring himself to move from his spot against the bathroom door. There was a persistent shaking in his limbs that he couldn't stop no matter how much he wanted to, and a desperation rising inside of him that wouldn't leave him alone due to his incredibly hard and leaking boner that was causing the tent in his boxers. His expression was all screwed up—spooned and knitted brows, barely open eyes, and a twisted mouth that was trembling. 'I'm not going to touch it.' He thought as hard as he could. 'I'm going to take a cold shower and get dressed and then eat and nap and stream and then go to bed WITHOUT Jack.' 

Sound in that plan, he stood up straight and slowly took off his underwear, the friction of the fabric against his sensitive dick ripping a clenched-teeth whine from him. "I'm not going to touch it," He told himself through gritted teeth, "I'm not going to get off because of him." With that, he turned the right knob for cold water and got in, stiffening up when the icy drops bit into his skin. After a while, he got used to it and allowed himself to relax under the arctic spray, though his dick didn't do anything of the sort. 

Eventually the cold became too much and he switched to hot briefly before getting out, wrapping a towel around himself and tossing his dirty boxers into the hamper in the corner before peeking out of the bathroom door to see if Jack was still out there. Didn't seem like it, so he snatched up his clothes from the carpeted floor and slipped them on—no underwear, unfortunately, but it would have to do for now. He still had a boner, but a simple tuck under the waistband of his pants fixed that. 

Somewhat like a cat, he crept on the balls of his feet out to the main living area, his hopes of Jack not being there dashed when he saw him sitting on the sofa petting Molly and talking quietly to her. "... pushed me away an' locked himself in the bathroom." Was all Vinny could catch. Jack was quiet as though listening, which he did appear to be as he then said, "I... I don't know. I jest know that he needs the help and he won't let me do t'at."

Vinny took a step forward and, unfortunately, landed on one of Molly's squeaky toys, the shrill sound startling everyone in the room, Vinny included. Jack whipped his head up to look at him, and Molly leapt off his lap to grab the squeaky toy and bolt down the hall so she could play with it in the room. Jack stared at Vinny and waved a little. "H-he-hey." He greeted.

Vinny tried to say something in return, but couldn't bring himself to do it, so he just turned away and walked into the kitchen to get something to eat. There was a sandwich in the fridge from Subway which he didn't remember buying, but he took it out and began to eat it anyway, taking his Amaretto from the top of the fridge and pouring himself a too tall glass of it with ice. He downed the whole thing within three bites of his sub, then finished half of the sub and put the rest back in the fridge. When he glanced back up to the sofa, Jack wasn't there anymore. Letting out a heavy sigh, Vinny strode over to the sofa and laid down onto it so he could nap before the stream.

"Hey guys, welcome back to the stream," Vinny drank more of his Amaretto straight from the bottle in an overdramatic swig before slamming it back onto his desk like he was at a bar. "And before anyone asks, yes, I'm drinking on a Wednesday night." He read the chat and laughed airily. "I'm fine guys, I just felt like treating myself to more of this tasty Amaretto. Anyway, let's start this fucking game."

 

Stream was over, and Vinny was drunk enough not to care about his boner anymore, but too tired to do anything about it, so he stumbled to his bedroom and fell down onto his bed with a groan of comfort and relief that he was finally getting some sleep. "Around yoouuu, I can't think of a word to say!" He more mumbled than sang as he rearranged himself in bed so that he was lying on his side. "I stumble and I run away..." 

He was drifting off when he heard and felt someone climb in behind him; however, he was too tired to register it, and fell fast asleep before anything more could happen.

+

The next few days and then weeks after that fateful night were full of trips to the studio, late nights streaming, and one-sided conversations with Jack that mostly went nowhere and faded out when Jack came to realize that Vinny wasn't going to carry it. Vinny hated how brick wall he was being, but he just.... He couldn't do it. He couldn't talk or even _look_ at Jack without feeling that disgusting lust from weeks prior come bubbling back up—it was hot and weighed down on his gut like lead, just _boiling there_ like it owned the place and honestly, Vinny could barely stand it. But, he didn't want to do anything about it, because that would mean admitting it was there, and Vinny would rather have someone break his bass guitar over his back than do that. So the feeling stayed.

Close to three the next day, Jack stopped Vinny as he got up from his computer with a hand on his chest and a shimmer of his aura. "We needta talk, Vinny." He told—no, demanded, applying pressure to Vinny's chest, forcing him to sit back down. 

"Oh, kay." Vinny mumbled, internally freaking out because he'd known that this was coming.

Jack sat across from him on the arm of the sofa, his normal set of arms crossed, his other pair on his hips. "Et's been almost t'ree weeks since we kissed and ye still won't talk ta me." 

Vinny cringed inwardly at the mention of The Incident™, which Jack seemed to notice and furrow his thick brows even deeper at. "See? Ye can't even t'ink aboot it wit'out makin' a face!"

"I'm sorry, okay? What do you want me to do?" Vinny raised his voice. "Want me to just act like it never happened?!"

"You don't haveta be fockin' _weird_ about it! Fockin' treating me like I don't exist!! Do ye even know what that's like?! T'e have someone you cared aboot act like yer a stranger?!"

Vinny almost visibly reeled back at the words; 'someone... you cared about'? "What?" He questioned.

The expression on Jack's face was close to anime-ish with how fucking bewildered and "are you actually fucking serious right now" it was. "Yer jokin', right? Ye really... didn't think I cared about you?" 

"I mean... not like that, I didn't." 

"Not like what?"

"Like..." Vinny couldn't find the right words, nor could he look at Jack directly. "...actually cared."

There was a moment of silence between them, Vinny staring down at the ground, feeling Jack's six eyes glaring into him. He heard Jack's hooves touch the wood flooring and then take a few steps up to him; he tensed in preparation to be touched, and then he was, softly on his shoulder, Jack's claws nipping at his skin through the thin fabric of his shirt. Vinny's left leg twitched at the feeling, in response him biting his tongue in his mouth and curling his toes to keep from showing anything more. "Vinny," Jack whispered, "I'm s'pposedta be yer friend, right? So t'at's what I'm doin'. Bein' yer friend."

For some reason, that irked Vinny to no end. "Yeah. Friend." He mumbled. "Friends who kiss."

"I was jest doin' what I felt ya wanted."

Vinny clenched his fists and stood up. "Jack, from now on, I need you to stop doing that."

Jack took a step back. "Doin' what?"

 _"That._ Doing what you think I want. Stop."

"I don't—"

"You're sending me mixed feelings!" Vinny grabbed Jack by the shoulders, his green-grey eyes wide and watering a little, though Vinny couldn't fathom why. "What do you want from me? Are you just using me for something? Do you love me as a friend, or are you just trying to make me confused? WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

There was fire in Jack's mouth and in his eyes, smoke billowing from his nose and tail standing on end. Vinny stared him down, his entire body shaking and teeth clenched. Jack extinguished the fire in his throat and asked in an almost inaudible tone, "What d'ya want me to say?"

Vinny's mind went blank; what _did_ he want Jack to say? Nothing, but at the same time, everything. "Just..." Dropping his posture and his hands from Jack's shoulders, he finished, "Stop treating me how you think I want, and treat me how _you_ want to, OK?"

Jack nodded slowly. "I can do t'at."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will Vinny finally tell Jack the truth?

Another week had gone by, and things seemed relatively back to normal, with Jack treating Vinny like he always had, if a little more sarcastic and sassy; it set Vinny on edge, but he didn't show it. Honestly... he could barely breathe thinking about it, and at night, he had dreams of him and Jack together—mostly them kissing, sometimes a little more. And when that "little more" happened...

Twice Vinny had woken up from almost coming due to a dream he had about them touching each other, his breathing erratic and heavy, Jack's name still on his lips as he awoke whimpering and shaking, his hips moving of their own volition. Many times he had Jack watching him, others with Jack no longer in bed; thankfully, those were the times where he was almost orgasming from a wet dream. 

Vinny knew that waking up before he came was a subconscious effort to keep himself from coming because of Jack. He did his best not to think about it, especially when he was at the studio trying to work on music or on-stream. It ended up happening anyway, on multiple occasions, but most notably on a Monday night, right before the studio session ended; Vinny was about to adjust the last part of the song and then finish the recording, when one of his bandmates said, "Man, it's hotter than a demon's nutsack in here, amirite?" 

That sentence gave him a flashback to the one dream where Jack... he... "Vinny! Vinny, that's too loud! TOO LOUD!!" 

He was smacked on the back of the head by one of his bandmates and was snapped out of his daze, realizing that he'd been turning the volume up too loud and it was blasting out the ears of the guy working the main controls. He snapped it down and put up his hands, stepping back from the panel, a bead of sweat running down the side of his face. "S-sorry..." He murmured. "I'll... be right back, I... need some air." 

With that, he shuffled past Mike and the others and made for the back exit to the studio, slamming it open and resting against the right wall, his hands fisting the thighs of his pants and eyes squeezed shut—he knew this was gonna happen, he knew it would start to affect his daily life, and now it's happening and he almost deafened a guy because he started thinking about Jack facefucking him and banging the back of his head against a wall. He took deep breaths and thought of things that would make him not be horny, like his grandma or the time he saw a homeless man trying to get a stray dog to lick his dick. The sound of the exit door opening to his left took all of those thoughts away and he lifted his head to see Mike standing in front of him, hands in the front pockets of his jeans, his eyes staring Vinny down as if he was conducting an interrogation. "Vinny, in all the time that I've known you, I've never seen you be fazed by anything; you're always level-headed and to be honest, kind of monotone and neutral." Mike began as he took the cigarette from behind his ear so he could light it. He puffed on it once and then passed it Vinny, who gingerly took it and gave it a half-hearted drag. Mike kept his gaze steady on him; it was honestly kind of intimidating. "But recently, Vinny, over the past couple weeks, I've seen you become someone I don't recognize. I've seen you become more openly emotional, if only at certain times; you're distant, almost like a zombie, just going through the motions with your head off somewhere else in the clouds." He took the cigarette back from Vinny and held it between his lips, gaze still unwavering. "And just now, with what happened in the audio room? You almost made that guy lose his hearing because of that little world you slip into at random. So," With a single shrug of his shoulders and a quick drag on the cigarette still in his mouth, he finished, "what's up with you, man? Hm? Is it drugs? 'Cause you know I won't tolerate that shit."

"It's not..." Vinny mumbled with his eyes dancing between Mike and his boner still causing the large bump in his jeans. "It's not drugs."

"Then what is it?"

Vinny didn't know why he was so scared to tell Mike the truth—it wasn't like he would be judged, he's known him too long for that. Besides, he didn't have to tell him _everything._ "It's a... it's a guy." He told him—did Jack qualify as a guy? He didn't exactly have genitals, but then again that wasn't what determined someone's gender.

Mike actually raised his brows at that. "A _guy,_ huh? He must be pretty special if he's got you all worked up like this."

"The thing is, Mike, it's my new roommate. I've been having, dreams about him, like—" He glanced down at his boner again, Mike also looking and raising his eyebrows even more. "—dreams."

"Oh." 

"Yeah. And, I don't know what to do. This has never happened to me before, yaknow? At least not with someone I know. And I haven't—" Vinny made the jacking off motion with his hand. "At all, since I've been having them; kinda just been ignoring it. I don't even know if he likes me. Shit, I don't even know if I like _him."_

"Well, obviously you do, or else you wouldn't be having wet dreams about him."

"It's not just about sex, Mike, it's the emotional connection."

"Do you think about him in a non-sexual way at all?"

Vinny hesitated. "I mean, he's never not on my mind if that's what you mean."

Mike turned up his mouth and made a "Hmph" noise. "You said it yourself, Vin; you love him."

"Love's a bit of a strong word."

"Then you really like him, at least. You should tell him."

Vinny's eyes widened. "No, that's a bad idea."

"Why?"

"Because... he's not... gay."

"You're not, either."

"You know what I meant. He's not into guys."

"How do you know? Have you asked him?"

Well, Mike had a good point; he hadn't asked Jack, but that wasn't the problem—Jack was a _demon,_ as in hell spawn with freaky powers and the ability to determine everything he wants or needs via probably reading his mind. 'It figures that the number one thing I want to fuck is a demon from the pits of Hell.' He thought with distaste; curse his own predictability. "I need to think on this more." He said.

Mike crossed his arms, right hand flicking the ash off of his cigarette, which was almost completely dead. "Seems to me you've done enough thinking for a lifetime." 

"Yeah, probably."

Sighing, Mike straightened up and grabbed Vinny's wrist, turning it underside-up and pushing the sleeve of Vinny's coat up. He put his cigarette out on his arm, the searing pain punching a disgusting moan from Vinny, him biting his bottom lip to keep from making any more noise, glaring daggers into Mike, who simply flicked the cigarette butt away and waved goodbye to him. "Come back inside when you're ready, still gotta finish that song." 

+

It was late when he returned home, almost ten, with Jack nowhere to be found; good because Vinny wanted to talk to Joel privately. He booted up his computer and hopped on Skype, seeing that Joel was online and calling him as he hooked up his headphones. After the fifth ring, Joel answered. "This better be important, I was about to go to sleep." He grumbled.

"Sorry for calling so late, Joel, but I need to talk to you about demons." Vinny told him.

"Just 'cause I like death metal doesn't mean I'm automatically a Satanist, dude."

"You know what I mean."

Joel laughed. "Yeah, I know. What's up?"

"Have you... God this is awkward,"

"Vinny, whatever it is, I promise I won't kinkshame."

"Have you ever had, thoughts, about Mark?"

There was a pause. "...What kind of 'thoughts'? Like sexual?"

"Yeah."

Joel didn't say anything for a minute or so, making Vinny frown and open his mouth to say something; however, Joel beat him to it. "What brought this up? Have you been thinking about Jack like that?"

"I've been having... dreams, yes."

"Ooh, Vinny, you whore! Can't resist those demon charms!"

"You didn't answer my question." 

"Hm, well, Mark propositioned me first—"

"Wait, you've had sex with him already?"

"I didn't say that! I said he _propositioned_ me, and I said thanks but no thanks. He's hot, but..."

"But what?"

"I'd prefer if no one saw me naked, especially not him, he's like fuckin' perfect, dude. Be great for my self-esteem, yaknow what I mean?"

"He wanted to have sex with you, dude, I'm pretty sure he already knew what you looked like naked."

"Yeah well I'm not going to think about it now. Let's talk about you and your fuckin' boner dreams about uh, what was his fuckin' name... Jack?"

"What about the dreams?"

"Have you jerked it to 'em? Does Jack know?"

"No, I haven't, and I haven't gotten off in almost a month because of it."

"Wh- _how?!_ What the fuck? A month? Dude!"

"I don't _want_ to," Vinny sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "I don't, want to get off to him."

"Why don't you just fuckin' accept it, dude? Have you told Jack yet?"

"No I haven't, and I'm probably never going to. He's a _demon,_ Joel, how the hell would that even work?"

"It's not like you gotta fucking date the guy, Jesus! You're just nutting to the thought of him! Tons of people do that shit with you anyway!"

"You don't get it, Joel, I— I really like him. At least I think so?"

"...You're in love with him?"

"Don't say it like that. I just, I don't know, I mean I think about him a lot, and I like how much he cares for me, and thinking about him leaving feels... wrong." Vinny sighed again, dropping his head into his hands, feeling a heavy weight drape across his shoulders like it was trying to push him down to the ground. "We kissed, once. He, he initiated it, and it was so..."

Joel was quiet as he listened, and then said in a low tone, "Vinny, you have to tell him."

Vinny made a questioning sound.

"You have to fuckin' tell Jack you love him."

"But I—"

"Don't say that you don't, 'cause yes you fucking do! You do love him, and there's not a doubt in my fucking mind that it's not a bad thing." 

"I don't know if I can do it."

"Why are you being a pussy? You've never been timid or whatever the fuck it is in English. Just do it!"

Vinny chuckled lightly. "Are you trying to motivate me with memes?"

"Yes, asshole. In all seriousness though, Vinny? It's not gonna just fuckin' go away by you ignoring it, it'll only get worse."

"You're right... When the fuck did you get so smart?"

"I just watch a lot of TED Talks, man,"

They both laughed, Vinny managing to cut in with, "Thanks for talking with me, Joel, I feel a lot better."

"Hey, no problem, man. Anytime."

Vinny was about to say something else when the front door opened and Jack came through, smiling his bright smile and holding Molly's leash. The heaviness in Vinny's gut returned and he told Joel, "Hey, I'll talk to you later."

"Ok, no problem. Remember what I said!"

"I won't. See ya."

Vinny hung up the call and spun around to face Jack, who had decided to sit beside him on the arm of the sofa in order to remove Molly's leash. "Who was that?" Jack asked as he set Molly back on the floor.

"Joel. I wanted to talk with him." Vinny answered.

"What about?"

"Something I'd actually like to talk to you about." 

With another heavy sigh, Vinny did his best to calm his heart rate and then stood up to be on an even level with Jack. "I need to tell you something, Jack."

Jack furrowed his brows and blinked his six eyes one at a time in a clockwise formation. "Ok..."

'I don't want to do this,' Vinny thought desperately, but he knew he had to. With slightly shaking hands, he gripped Jack's shoulders, stared into his multiple eyes, then told him defiantly, "I'm in... I think I'm in love with you, Jack."

Vinny felt the skin under his hands heat up to unbearable levels, causing him to tear up but also become aroused at the same time—damn his masochism. More fire and smoke blew out of Jack's nose and mouth, and Vinny could see his face twitching. "Y-you-you can't." Jack whispered, his accent much stronger when he was trying to be quiet.

"Well, I do." Vinny replied, equally as soft, caressing the side of Jack's face. "I don't know if what I'm feeling for you is love or lust or whatever the fuck, but I do know that I think about you all the time and I have dreams about us together and I never, ever want you to leave me. I... want us to be together, for as long as I'm alive." 

After he said that, he cradled Jack's face in his hands and leaned in to kiss him, the contact desperate and filled with every ache and longing that Vinny had been dying from for almost a month and God, it was like he was breathing in oxygen for the first time. Jack gasped and managed to breathe out, "Vinny, wait—"

Vinny only pulled back enough to allow the both of them to speak, their foreheads touching. "What? What's wrong?" He asked.

"You c-can't," Jack said in a low voice, "You weren't su-su-supposedta fall in l-love wit' m-me."

"It's not like I chose to." Vinny laughed airily. "Believe me, I struggled for a really... really long time before I realized it."

"I-I-I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize."

"I sh-shouldn't ha-have talked t' ya."

Vinny pecked his lips a couple times before he asked, "What do you mean?"

"I-I mean, t'at I'd b-be-been watching ya before I ever c-confronted ye, and I... I-I t'ought I could h-hel-help you be ha-happy, since I really liked ye, yaknow? But... I sh-should've known t'is would happen."

"You were stalking me?" 

"In a m-manner of s-spee-speaking, yeah." 

"And you... like me?"

Jack began to radiate more heat and he lowered his head as much as he could since it was still pressed to Vinny's. "I do." He mumbled.

"Then... what's the problem?"

Instead of replying, Jack wrapped all four of his arms around Vinny and kissed him, deeply, tilting both of their faces so that they could slip their tongues into each other's mouths. Vinny moaned from the back of his throat and pressed himself against Jack as hard as he could, shuddering at the friction against his crotch and the ever-present boner that was there. He gripped Jack's back and whimpered between kisses, "You make me really horny..."

Jack shook his head with an airy laugh. "Et's s-so cute how desperate y-y-you are fer me."

Vinny mouthed at Jack's neck, feeling the vibrations of his almost-purring through his lips and tongue. "Well, I've been sexually frustrated for almost a month, so..." He mumbled.

"T'at's true." 

Just before Vinny could try and get off, his phone alarm rang and alerted him that it was time for him to stream. He pulled back with shiny lips and blown pupils, his gaze steady in Jack's. "Damn," He panted, bedroom eyes raking over him. "Guess it'll have to wait."

With hooded eyes, Jack gave him a peck on the lips and smiled a little. "W-whenever ye wa-want, Vinny, I'll b-b-be here." He told him quietly.

Vinny turned around and sat in his desk chair while simultaneously waking up his computer for that night's stream.

+

For about an hour, he played some Fallout 4, then a few weird games for another hour, making references and sarcastic comments like he usually did, when two hands covered his eyes and another two settled on his shoulders, him letting out a yelp of surprise. "G-guess who," said a low voice—Jack's.

"Jack? Jesus, you scared me!" He cried, turning to look at him once the hands had removed themselves from his face; he made sure to pause the game he was playing so he could talk to him. "Do you need something?"

Jack folded up his legs and hovered in the air in front of him, his aura a light pink that slowly turned to red and then back again, his tail flickering at a slow pace back and forth. "No, j-jest wonderin' when y-ye-ye were comin' t' bed. It's late a-and I'm gettin' lonely." He told him as he placed a hand gently on the side of Vinny's face and stroked his thumb across his cheek. 

Vinny placed his over it and kissed it. "I'll be in there soon, okay? Just gonna finish up this game." 

"Okay," 

Jack leaned forward and kissed him, Vinny feeling the warmth he was emitting wrap around every part of him and he sighed, completely forgetting that he was streaming, instead focusing on Jack and the softness of his lips and slight callousness of his hands, how every part of him seemed to move in time with Vinny and his heartbeat, how everything seemed to fall into place whenever they touched; it was the most exhilarating feeling in the world, and Vinny could not get enough of it. Eventually, Jack pulled away with a smile and a retreating peck at his lips, saying, "I'll lea-leave you alone t' stream n-now."

Breathing a little heavier and his head substantially more light, Vinny gave a nod and replied, "Ok... I'll finish up here soon."

Jack waved as he floated off, back down the hall until Vinny couldn't see his aura anymore. He turned back to his computer and unpaused the game, not bothering to check chat since he knew he'd forgotten to mute the mic and that everyone had heard what had happened. "Sorry for the interruption, guys, that was Jack, in case anyone didn't know. He lives with me." He apologized; briefly, he glanced at chat to see mostly the same three questions: "are you gay", "were you two kissing" and "are you guys together/are you two dating/is he your bf". Figuring it better to just squash the rumors now instead of leaving them to fester, he said, "To answer your questions, no, I'm not gay, I'm bisexual, yes, we were kissing, and... we're kinda together. I'm not sure yet. You've all known me long enough to know that I'm not a big fan of dating." There was a pause. "We'll see where it goes from here." 

 

Half an hour later, once the game and all the art was done, Vinny shuffled to his bedroom to wash up, brushing his teeth and splashing water on his face before taking off his jeans and changing into a different shirt. With a heavy exhale of relief, he fell onto his bed and rolled over to face Jack, who wrapped two arms around him, as well as a leg. "Goodnight, Vinny." Jack said in a gentle voice.

Vinny tentatively put his arm around him and kissed him, eyes wide and unseeing in the dark, searching for a glimpse of Jack's face; finding none, he closed his eyes and said in return, "Goodnight, Sean."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vinny can't keep anything, can he?

When Vinny woke up the next day (or later that day, depending on how you see it), he was alone. 

There was no studio time today, as it was booked for the next few days, so Vinny had some free time to work on his own personal songs and participate in some of his hobbies that he usually never had time for. He was kind of disgruntled that Jack wasn't there, but to be fair, Jack _was_ a demon and probably had a busy life, so he shouldn't be too surprised. And yet...

'Whatever,' He thought as he ate breakfast and booted up his computer, 'I'm going to be busy today, anyway, so it's not like I'll have the time to talk with him.'

He told himself that to try and convince himself that he wasn't upset that Jack was gone, but, in his subconscious, he knew that it wasn't true; he missed him, a lot, probably more than was healthy. It was kind of sad, really, but also worrying; what would happen when Vinny finally made his wish? He wasn't going to keep Jack waiting forever, and he wasn't going to make a wish to keep Jack with him, either. He wasn't selfish enough to do that. Regardless, the thought of being alone and without Jack raised the levels of anxiety within him considerably, so, as he set his plate in the sink, he resolved not to think about it at all ever and just keep on going with his day, focusing fully on each task as it came to him to reduce distractions. As he was cleaning up his desk, he came across the spiked choker that Jack had given him when they first met under some papers and wrapped it around his neck, buckling it and checking his reflection in his phone screen, turning this way and that; it didn't look too terrible on him, actually, though he felt that he should have a streak of colour in his hair. But, he was getting off track. Tugging at it a bit comically, he set back on editing the video for his main channel—it was of his most recent Fallout 4 streams, and also probably the second longest video of its kind that he had on that channel. There had just been so many good bits in those streams, too many to pass up. Usually, he'd have Vappy edit the videos, but unfortunately the editor was busy with his own personal life and told Vinny he'd need a bit of time off until it blew over, so for now it was just Vinny doing the work. He didn't mind, really—he'd been slacking on editing due to music, which you'd think wouldn't take away from his creativity with video editing, but his brain wasn't wired for working on two things at once. Kinda stupid, but it at least let him shove all of his creative effort into one thing instead of multiple projects at once. 

So lost in his thoughts was he that he didn't even hear the hoofsteps walking up behind him until someone said, "You look busy."

Vinny whipped around to find himself face to face with Mark, Joel's demon, the red hair distracting him a moment, but he soon flickered his eyes back down to Mark's own. "What are you doing here?" He asked.

Mark folded his four legs over each other in a very confusing way and rested his arms on them as he floated in the air; his aura was very intimidating and gave Vinny an unsettling feeling that wriggled in his gut. "I see that you and Jack have hit it off very well." Mark stated in a flat tone.

Sitting up straighter, Vinny made sure not to let on how uncomfortable he really was in his tone or body language, keeping his legs open and hands settled on his thighs. "Well, our personalities ended up clicking and all that." He replied.

"Hm, yeah, well that doesn't seem to be matching up with what your body is telling me." Mark reclined some and let his legs untangle and hang loose.

"And what's that?" 

"You're so very, very horny, aren't you?"

There was no denying that. "Pretty obvious already, but you're not here for that, are you, Mark?"

Mark leaned all the way forward so that he was hovering on his stomach with his face inches from Vinny's. "Smartass."

"What do you want? Jack's not here."

"I didn't come here for him."

"Well, I'm a busy guy, so just tell me what you need and I'll be on my merry fucking way."

Mark shifted again to be full frontal with Vinny and cocked his head slightly to the side, empty eyes gazing into Vinny's washed-out green—a cold chill ran up and down Vinny's spine, making him swallow and his heart rate speed up. Mark's lips parted as he opened his mouth to speak, revealing all of his serrated, knife-like teeth when he did so. "I want to talk to you about Joel." He told him.

"Oh, kay, what about him?" Vinny shifted in his chair.

With red smoke flowing out of the corners of his mouth, Mark created a chair out of thin air and sat on it with one pair of legs criss-crossed and the other spread wide, all of the eyes across his face and body blinking slowly out of sync. "He's been acting weird lately and it's annoying. Has he said anything to you?"

"Can't you just read his mind or whatever and figure out why he's being strange?"

"It's not that simple, genius. I can tell his wants and needs, but nothing past that, and I haven't been able to pick up anything."

"He hasn't said anything to me about you other than that you propositioned him for sex once."

Mark snorted, small blasts of pink fire shooting out of his nose as that happened. "Yeah, right. I asked him if he would be into it and he acted like he didn't even hear me. I'd call him a loser if I wasn't so hard for him." Mark paused, then laughed. "Whatever, I'll just call him one anyway. Fuckin' loser!"

Vinny scowled and leaned forward, accusing finger jabbed rudely in Mark's direction. "Don't talk about him like that, he has enough self esteem issues as it is."

Mark rolled his eyes (at least Vinny thought so?) with a lowering of his head so that he could pick at his claws and clean them. "Not anymore he doesn't." He mumbled.

Vinny narrowed his eyes. "His wish..?"

Mark's smile was dangerous and full of teeth and soulless gazes. "Good guess, Vin."

"Yeah,"

Vinny didn't want to be here right now; it felt like he was going to shrink and disappear under the oppressing, unending glare of Mark's eyes, the weight of them all bearing down on him. Mark smiled even wider and moved closer to Vinny, floating off his chair to instead hover over him, hands on his hips. 

"Anyway, back to what you were saying," Vinny began, "what did you mean by Joel 'acting strange'?"

"Oh, you know..." Mark sighed heavily, head falling back. "just weird."

Vinny rolled his eyes. "Very helpful."

"What, do you want a fucking detailed overview of his every day body language? I can just tell!"

"Then I can't help you, dumbass! I don't have your demon powers."

Mark made an indignant noise and crossed his arms, turning his head away and floating down lower to the ground. Sighing quiet enough so as not to be heard, Vinny spun back around to face his computer, holding up a hand and running the other through his hair. "Listen Mark, I don't have time for your fucking hissy fits, okay? I'm busy with grown up stuff." He told him firmly.

Silence, and then the whooshing sound of Mark disappearing in a cloud of smoke, the red tendrils of it curling around Vinny's chest and arms. He waved it away with furrowed brows and turned on some music to clear his head of the entire interaction.

+

On his way back from the store (from buying himself more Amaretto because Treat Yoself), Joel called him up and said, _"Hey man, can I come over? I needta talk to you about something."_

"Yeah, sure." Vinny agreed, and before he could say anything more, Joel hung up, leaving Vinny standing outside the convenience store under the cold, cloudy sky, waiting for his Über. When it arrived, he got into the back and buckled his seatbelt, the driver stepping on the gas and zooming off in the direction of his flat while he stared out the window and thought on what Joel could possibly want to talk about; there wasn't much, because although they'd known each other since Joel was sixteen (which seemed like a long time but in actuality was only a few years as their age gap was very wide), Vinny realized as he sat in the back of the Über watching the city fly by, that he knew very little about Joel's personal life. Like, yeah, he knew that he was an only child, had divorced parents, went to Catholic school for a short time, liked metal and (m)anime, and that his dad sounded like Kermit the Frog, but outside of that he knew almost nothing about him. What was even his last name? Was he dating anyone? How much family did he have? All those questions and more ran through his head, so much so that he didn't even realize that he was standing outside of the door to his apartment until his phone vibrated in his pocket—it was Joel, asking him if he was there yet. He replied saying yes, he was, followed shortly after by Joel opening the door; Vinny furrowed his brows a little and questioned, "How'd you get in my apartment?"

"Demon, remember? Jack teleported me in." Joel replied.

"Oh, right." Vinny gave a singular nod before stepping around Joel into his house, dropping his keys onto the counter to his right and kicking his shoes off, hearing Joel kick at the carpet and clear his throat so low that Vinny wasn't sure he'd even heard it at all. To break the uncomfortable silence, he asked, "So, what'd you want to talk to me about?"

"Uh, right!" Joel shuffled up to him and around to face him—sort of, the man still wouldn't look him in the eyes, pale blues seemingly more interested in the wallpaper and dirt stains than Vinny's own grey-greens. "You uh, see, Vinny, I have a pr... problem." 

A cocked brow, Vinny stuffing his hands into his pockets and shifting his weight. "What kind of 'problem'?"

There was no answer for a bit, just Joel scratching his head and running his hands through his hair, fixing his badly worn hoodie and pulling up his ripped jeans, while Vinny waited kind of patiently for him to respond; when, finally, he did, he spoke in Swedish, something that Vinny had always found kind of endearing but right now was making him a little irritable. "Joel, c'mon. English?" He said.

Joel crossed his arms and grumbled under his breath, regardless repeating himself in his second language. "I don't know why Mark keeps hanging around me. I already got my wish, he got my signature and blood, so like what the fuck more could he want?"

Vinny rolled his eyes at how stupid both Mark and Joel were, though making sure that Joel didn't notice that he'd done it and saying, "Have you ever thought that maybe, Joel, he wants something you have, or, _'God forbid',_ that he likes you?"

With furrowed brows, Joel questioned, kind of hushed, "Likes me? Why the fuck would he?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know? I can't read minds! Listen, Joel," Vinny patted Joel's shoulder with hesitant movements as he finished, "This isn't something I can help you with; you know why? Because I do the same shit, which is not talking to the other person about something that bothers you. So, like, do the opposite: communicate. Okay?"

A heavy sigh, Joel scratching his head under his mess of hair and sniffling, though he gave no indication of crying or having allergies— a reflex, probably. Vinny sighed without making a noise and ran a few fingers through his hair, which he'd gotten into the habit of doing lately; he stopped in his action, lowering his hand back to his side and rolling his eyes as he said, "Well, do whatever you think is best, okay Joel? I'm just trying to help."

A noise behind them caused them both to pause and turn to face the cause of the noise, which turned out to be Mark knocking over the cup of pens that Vinny had next to his computer with one of his tails. He lifted his face slightly towards them and lifted the corners of his mouth in what supposedly was a smile, but came across as more of a hostile baring of long, sharp teeth. "Oops," He said.

"Have you been here this whole time?" Joel asked, his hands balling into fists, then releasing repeatedly. 

"And if I have?" Mark purred as he floated over into Joel's personal space, that unbearable, half-lidded eyes and sideways smirk expression with small pillars of smoke billowing out the sides of his mouth. 

Rolling his eyes and crossing his arms, Joel shuffled away from him and let his hair fall into his face. "Fuck off, Mark."

"Oh, so now you're mad at me? I swear to God, you're more emotional than any human I've ever met."

While this was happening, Vinny had sat on the back of his sofa with a glass of Amaretto and watched the two of them go at it with a blank expression on his countenance-- really, it was all very comical, considering how obvious it was that they both liked each other, and how badly they dealt with it. 

"You know Joel," Mark whispered, hovering very close to Joel's ear with red wisps of smoke flowing out of his nose, "you can cash in on your wish whenever you want..."

Joel's eyes widened a bit, them darting between Vinny and Mark a couple of times before settling on Mark. _"Håll tyst!"_ He hissed in Swedish.

A devilish smirk spread across Mark's face, and to be honest, it was kind of unsettling (speaking of unsettling, Vinny thought, where was Jack?). _"Varför? Inte Vinny vet inte om vår lilla avtal?"_ He replied, claws playing with the ends of Joel's long hair.

All Vinny understood was his name; he sure wished he knew what they were saying, though they were probably speaking in Swedish so that it'd be easier for Joel to understand, and he shouldn't expect them to speak for his whims considering that he was the one eavesdropping.

 _"Nej, och jag'd förbannade vilja behålla det."_ Joel's tone was kind of hostile. Vinny sipped on more of his Amaretto and gave a light nod— yeah, you tell him, Joel, or something.

Mark floated around to in front of him and reclined on his side, one arm bent to prop his head up, the other on his side. "Whatever." 

Well, Vinny knew that word.

 _"Om du don't vill mig runt så dåligt sedan bara förbannade mig lämna."_ Mark laid on his back and stuck his hands behind his head, beginning to float away from Joel. _"Jag don't se vad den stora frågan är."_

Moving quicker than Vinny had ever seen anyone move, Joel snatched Mark by one of his arms and yanked him back to him while also simultaneously causing him to stand up straight; fire was in his eyes, his face was pulled up into a sneer, and Vinny could've sworn he saw something glow behind his teeth. "You don't understand what 'the big deal is' about anything!" He yelled.

When Mark spoke, his voice was... unnatural, quiet. "Joel, you're hurting my arm..." 

"Fucking good! Maybe the pain will pull your fucking head out of your ass!" Joel shouted as he yanked on Mark's arm before shoving him back by the chest. "You're a fucking piece of shit, Mark. I can't believe I fucking _ever_ thought you cared about me. Shit," He looked him over with disgust. "I don't need you. You know fucking what? Not only do I not need you, I deserve better than your fuckin' ass. _Du're de fulaste person jag've någonsin sett, Mark. På insidan."_

He looked to Vinny, who had stopped with his glass halfway to his mouth, eyebrows raised. "I'll catch you later, Vinny." He said before heading towards the door.

"Later, Joel." Vinny replied just in time for his front door to slam shut— the sound echoed throughout the room, mixing with the almost inaudible sound of Mark... crying? Vinny set his glass down on his desk and shuffled slowly towards Mark with a hand outstretched. "Mark? Are you... okay?"

The crying grew louder and louder, until it was the only thing Vinny could hear. First, Mark's head turned, then his upper torso, followed by his waist and legs; when Vinny saw his mouth pulled up into the widest grin he'd ever seen and the many half-lidded eyes, with the shaking shoulders and head tossed back, he realized that Mark wasn't crying— he was _laughing._ Huge, loud, bellowing laughs that shook the floor and made pictures fall off the walls, his aura glowing purple and orange repeatedly and brightly. As it died down, Vinny asked, "Uh, Mark? Why are you laughing?"

Mark held up one of his many hands, signalling him to wait, which Vinny did, until he'd calmed down some more and was no longer heaving in huge breaths of air. "Ooh," He began, "I knew he was fiery, but not that much." He ran a hand through his hair and smirked. "I'm glad I granted him his wish while we were talking. That was fun!" 

Vinny furrowed his brows. "What are you talking about?"

Dropping his head to the side, Mark's sly smirk grew wider. "You hooonestly don't think that Joel would act like that without SOME kind of special secret, do you?"

Well, that was true. "I mean, I guess."

Mark stuck out his tongue and winked. "If he wasn't hot before, he sure is now." 

"Ew." Vinny said flatly, expressionless.

"Anyway, I gotta go catch up to him. Later loser."

And then he was gone, a puff of red smoke all that remained as evidence of his presence. "Good grief," Vinny mumbled.

 

The sky was an amalgamation of colours— vivid reds, oranges, pinks, purples, and deep royal blues— by the time Vinny had finally finished with everything he'd wanted to do today and then some; he was kind of hungry, but wasn't in the mood for anything in particular, so he just stood up and stretched with a throaty groan due to both how tired he was and how good stretching felt. While he twisted this way and that, he wondered where Jack had been today and why he hadn't at least tried to contact him— it was weird for him, but his own ineptitude with relationships and dealing with emotions made everything involving Jack very confusing. Did he even like him, let alone love him? What does that even feel like? Vinny wasn't even sure he knew the difference between the two. Was he only in love with having someone around that liked him and his hobbies? That could've very likely been the case, but he still didn't know. In fact, he was pretty sure he didn't know anything anymore— everything was fucked up and nothing made sense, so he decided to take a shower and listen to music.

Warmth from the shower encasing his body helped to melt away the tension building in his bones— it had been... a day, that was the only way Vinny could describe everything that had happened. A good wash of his body with one of those fancy ass body washes he got in his P.O Box from a fan really helped him relax; it was watermelon scented, though not realistically of course, more like candy than actual fruit. Vinny wasn't entirely against it since hey, it smelled nice and made him feel really clean and refreshed, so the fact that it came in a green and pink bottle with glitter in the gel was irrelevant to him; besides, he thought the glitter was kinda cute. At the thought, he raised his eyebrows; he's never really used that word to describe anything before. Guess it was time to start or something. 

Once he'd finished doing the essentials, he sat down under the spray of water for a while and just kind of brooded, thinking about nothing in particular, picking at the dry skin on his feet and the dirt under his nails, feeling his face and deciding that he could go another day without trimming his beard, though it probably would make him look unkept, but, what was new? Looking down at his hands, he saw them turning wrinkly and prune-like and figured it was probably time to get out of the shower, so he stood up and turned off the water, stepping out of the shower onto the rug so he wouldn't drip water everywhere while he was toweling off. He dried his hair first, then his underarms, then his back, and then his arms and legs since they always gathered the most water. Setting his towel back on the hook, he walked out naked into his bedroom and threw on a shirt and a pair of boxers before checking the digital clock by his bed— it was only ten PM, and he wasn't particularly tired, figuring he could squeeze in a stream of some Subnautica and maybe Wolfenstein: The New Order if he was feeling up to it. He tweeted out that he was going live in a couple of minutes, then shuffled out to his desk and booted up his computer, launching his streaming program as well as Twitch chat, settling his headphones over his head and testing his mic with, "Hello everyone, hello."

Chat was filled a multitude of "hey"s and "hello vinny"s, which meant that he was heard and his mic was working. He input the game that he was playing into Twitch, then started up Subnautica. "So, how are you guys doing tonight? Any new memes I should know about?" He asked.

The replies were as you'd expect, Vinny laughing and going on, "Well, let's get started on the game."

 

About an hour into the stream, he saw a person in chat ask a question and read it out, "'vinesauce wheres your bf'". He answered, "You mean Jack? I don't know actually, he hasn't been here all day. Hasn't called me either."

He read chat again. "'wait so u guys are dating now?' Not really. I don't actually know to be honest." Sighing, Vinny went on, "It's complicated."

Vinny laughed and nodded as he farmed for titanium and silver ore and read a message from someone named "fuckmasterdildoking" saying "what with you isnt". "Yeah, that's true, what with me _isn't_ complicated. I'm a pretty complex dude."

Reading more messages, he said one aloud. "'Why are you so scared of commitment'?"

Faltering in his movements, Vinny paused for a second before answering, "...I think I, mentioned this in a previous stream, but," He exhaled deeply and rubbed his eyes. "It's because I'm scared of the person I'm with falling out of love with me and leaving me when I'm still in love with them. Like, they come to hate me, even though they said that they wanted to be with me forever."

A follow-up message. "'so youd rather suffer being in love w some1 and never getting together w them than potentially have ur heart broken¿'"

Laughing with nervousness on the edges of his voice, Vinny nodded even though no one could see him and said in return, "Yeah, I guess. I just don't want that to happen. And besides, I'm always too busy, so I wouldn't exactly be the most fulfilling partner," After a second, he added, "sorry ladies."

After a few minutes of him taking his titanium and silver back to his base, he read another message aloud. "'does jack know this?' Nnnnot, exactly, but it doesn't seem like he particularly cares."

Nothing more was said on that for the rest of the stream.

+

Vinny ended up not doing Wolfenstein due to how tired he was after two hours of Subnautica, so he showed the art and said goodbye, taking his headphones off and stood up, turning around and coming to a stop upon seeing Jack standing there, his aura a dark blue and his expression particularly human. "Jack! Hey, long time no see." He greeted, furrowing his brows and shifting his weight at the strange way the air around Jack made him feel.

Almost inaudibly, Jack whispered, "Yeah. Not like et matters."

Vinny frowned deeper. "What do you mean?"

Black waves of... something coiled out of Jack's aura, turning the whole room dark and covering the floor with black smoke, tendrils curling around Vinny's wrists and legs like ghostly hands grabbing at him. He looked down at it, then back up at Jack, who appeared more demon-like than usual, his ears long and pointed, another set of horns having grown out over his first, though shorter, and his claws were extremely long with his features twisted and gnarled into something straight out of Vinny's nightmares. "Jack..?" He mumbled.

When Jack turned to him, he was oozing black out of the deep cut on his throat and out of his mouth, which was full of the longest and sharpest teeth Vinny had ever seen; they poked out of his mouth. He had black smudged on all of his hands and all over his pale body, and the lower part of his body was obscured in darkness. _**"Vinny,"**_ Jack said in a still quiet, yet deep, growly, overlayed voice that had so many people speaking at once in it that it made Vinny feel dizzy. _**"Y-ye can tell t'ou-t'ou-t'ousands of people t'at y-you don't love me, b-bu-but not me?"**_

 _Oh God._ Vinny pretended that he didn't know what Jack was talking about. "What?"

A thunderous boom resounded that made Vinny's glass patio door crack and his bones shake. _**"Y-yo-you're lyin', Vinny. I c-cen see..."**_

Vinny blinked against his own will and when his eyes opened, Jack was barely a foot in front of him, his empty eyes and ghoulish grin making his feet glue themselves to the ground out of pure fear alone. Jack's features were twitching and constantly moving, as though many faces were being projected onto his in a slideshow. He cocked his head very slowly to the side and said, _**"... i-inside you, y-you know... empty a-an-an' lonely..."**_

Distantly, Vinny heard people screaming— as he listened, he realized it was coming from inside of Jack, from the gash in his throat. His eyes widened and he tried to back away, but the more he tried to move, the louder the voices screamed, and it scared him so badly he let out a cry when he felt many small hands gripping his shirt and pants, trying to get him to stay in one place. "Jack! Please, you're scaring me!" 

The hands kept grabbing, a wave of darkness pulling at his clothes and hair, crawling into his mouth and choking him. _**"I ho-hope ye know th-tha-that I would've done a-anyt'ing fer you,"**_ Jack's voice was even more sinister than before, somehow, reaching into Vinny's brain like a plague to paralyze him. _**"What I'm d-doin' t' ya, you did t' me wh-when ye lead me on, sayin' t'at ye were in love wit' me 'n shit. Fuck,"**_ He growled. _**"You really had me goin', didn't ya?"**_

Those horrid voids of hands were spreading like snakes throughout Vinny's whole body, obscuring his vision with long tendrils of black smoke crawling out of his tear ducts and nostrils; he tried desperately to speak, to apologize, to do _anything,_ but all he could do was choke and wheeze around the weight of the fingers in his throat. His shoulders slumped and his knees trembled and tempted to give way— it was as though he was no longer in control of his own body. When he grasped at the ghastly extremities to try and tear them away from him, they slipped through his fingers like liquid, refusing to materialize and be held. As the piercing blackness crept over his weakening body, the last thing he heard was Jack whispering in his ear. _**"I gave up... s-so much fer ya... I ho-hope you realize t'at... a-an-and it keeps ya up at night, V-Vinny."**_

And then, just as he was about to pass out, it was all gone— he could breathe, he could talk, but he couldn't think; Jack's last words echoed like a scream in an empty room through his brain, because God... he'd really done it this time.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vinny feels sorry for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would've made this chapter longer, but the ideas I have for it would be dragging it on, so have this interlude.

Sunlight hitting Vinny's closed eyes stirred him awake; his whole body ached, as though he'd been sleeping on a rock, and when he opened his eyes he realized that he'd been pretty close: he was on his living room floor, where he'd been laying crumpled on the carpet since the night before, when...

Shooting straight up (much to the dismay of his back and shoulders), he exhaled sharply, his chest shooting with pain due to the intrusions of yesterday that were still not healed yet. Warmth dripped out of his nose and onto his hands, causing him to look down and see splotches of ruby red all over himself. "Fuck," He rasped due to how sore his throat was. Staggering to his feet, he stumbled to the bathroom and threw up in the toilet for a couple minutes— disgusting black ooze mixed with the blood from his nose— then stuffed toilet paper in his nose before rinsing his mouth out and washing his face. He was shaking and shivering, his whole body trembling under the weight he felt on his shoulders; everything that had happened was his fault, or at least that's how it felt, and to be honest it made him feel like shit. When he looked in the mirror he realized that he looked like shit, too: his under eye bags were darker than usual, his actual eyes were bloodshot, he was sickly pale, and his hair was a mess. It was pretty bad. _"Fuck,"_ He hissed once more.

Making his way back to the living room and to his computer, he turned it on and furrowed his brows at the sight of his streaming program still up and running, as well as chat and Twitch. When he went to turn them all off, he saw that he was _still streaming._ "What the fuck?" He whispered as he checked the length of his stream— fourteen hours, including the two hours he'd spent on Subnautica last night. _"Fuck!"_ He shouted in dismay. There was no escaping it— everyone had heard what had happened, what Jack and done and what they'd said to each other. His only hope was that everyone had exited the stream before they'd heard anything, but he knew that would be too good to be true. Slightly panicking, he closed out of everything and, as fast as he could, searched Youtube for any videos of his stream last night; he found a couple, but only one labelled "Vinesauce Vinny death on-stream?? (FULL VIDEO)". He clicked on it and, sure enough, it was the last part of the stream where he said goodbye, but for some reason the stream didn't end and you could hear him setting his headphones down and getting out of his chair, then saying, "Jack! Long time no see."

There was an anecdote from the poster saying that they had to turn up the audio at this point so you could hear what "Jack" was saying. Vinny kept watching, through the static and creepy audio glitches caused by Jack's supernatural powers, until it ended, which Vinny remembered as him almost passing out and Jack leaving. After a minute of silence, there was a screen of text that read, "at this point nothing else happens. i waited for about two hours for something, but it seems like vinny either died or passed out. i tried to fix some of those audio glitches but i couldnt get it to work. sorry!" It finished with the poster's Youtube handle, then the video was over. 

Good mother of God... Vinny was really in for it now. In fact he wasn't just in it, he was _swimming_ in it, was breathing it into his lungs and drowning. There was no way he could get out of this without lying, which was something he really, REALLY didn't like doing and did his best to avoid it at all costs, but how would he be able to explain what went down and A. have it make sense, and B. not get him either sent to a mental hospital or arrested for drug use? There was no way. He would just have to say what actually happened, everyone would take it as a joke, and then he'd laugh it off and say that he'd rather not talk about it. Easy peasy... probably. Vinny hoped so, because, to be honest, he could really use a break right now. 

Since there was no studio time until Thursday, Vinny didn't really have anything to do, so he figured it'd probably be in his best interest to go make sure he didn't have any other injuries— with this fog in his brain, it was impossible to tell just by feeling alone. He dragged his feet all the way to the bathroom and inside, flicking the light on and pulling his shirt off over his head to check for anything; there was his body hair, a couple scars, nothing out of the ordinary. He then took off his shorts and boxer briefs, looking his lower half over and not finding anything there, either, the only thing even slightly out of the ordinary being his dick, which was no longer hard. 'Thank God.' He thought, a heavy exhale of relief blowing out through his mouth. 

He didn't appear to have anything wrong with him, which was fantastic because he really didn't want to take a visit to the hospital; for now, he just needed to tweet out that what had happened last night was not something he wanted to talk about, but he was fine and that's what really mattered, more would be explained via stream later that day, etc. All he really wanted to do was sleep and not think about how he'd managed to fuck up yet another (almost) good thing, without even getting a wish, which probably would never have happened anyway because like, he had nothing to wish for, at least nothing that came to mind immediately anyway. Besides, he was a nobody, there was no use wasting a wish on a loser like himself, though it was probably better that it was him and not some unsuspecting person getting their soul taken; he didn't particularly mind going to hell, since he'd planned on going there regardless, so might as well get the confirmed pass right? In any case, he walked out to his bed and collapsed down onto it with a huff, not bothering to put any of his clothes back on, opting to instead just fall asleep naked and, like, fuck the whole world.

+

Obviously, he awoke some hours later— around two in the morning, his body having had enough rest for the day. Thanks to his combined sixteen hours of sleep, Vinny's limbs felt like they were made of lead and his head was foggy; lethargy was never his friend and had always hit him harder than others, or at least that's what it had felt like. As much as the thought made him cringe, he knew that going for a jog or something around the block would shake it off, so he washed his face and slipped into one of his only pairs of sweatpants and his Vinesauce hoodie and then left. He didn't take his wallet or his keys, just his phone and earbuds, not realizing until he was already out of the building that Jack wouldn't be there to poof him back inside. Something pulled in his chest at the thought, but he brushed it aside and decided that he'd just enter through his fire escape when he came back, as much of a chore as that was. Even so, he really did need the exercise, so he shrugged the whole ordeal off with a roll of his shoulders and set off for the end of the block. He tried to jog for the first half, but his chest started to hurt so he slowed to a walk, shoving his hands in his pockets after sticking his earbuds in his ears and blasting some of his David Bowie. If he got mugged then like, oh well. Better for him to go out sooner than later, when his head had cleared and he could actually realise how terrible everything was because of how badly he'd fucked up. Nothing was really registering at the moment, so he was free for a time from the coming weight of guilt and immense self-loathing; but, then again, what was new? 

It was unnaturally dark tonight, and Vinny was having a hard time seeing where he was going— there were no people on the sidewalks, no cars in the street, just Vinny and his music, and the upcoming street lamp that barely shone brighter than a glow stick. He stopped beside it to take a break and check his Twitter, which consisted mostly of memes, people telling him to go to the police, asking what happened in reply to this tweet stating that he'd rather not talk about it, and others asking what happened to the stream he promised. In response to that, he tweeted out that he would be streaming once he got back from his walk, then stuffed his phone in his back pocket and started off again.

He'd made it about three-fourths of the way home when he heard voices coming from somewhere ahead of him, coming in his direction— they were male and very loud, leaking in through Vinny's headphones. In order to avoid a confrontation, he lowered his head and stepped off the curb to get as much distance between him and them as possible; however, just as he was walking side-by-side with them, he felt a rough hand grab his arm and spin him around, yanking him back onto the curb while consequently pulling his headphones out. Radiohead blasted through the small speakers into the cold night air for a few seconds before the jack was pulled out of the input and the music stopped. Vinny's eyes went wide as he stared up at the man that'd grabbed him, but it was only for a microsecond, as his expression fell back to the neutral apathy he was so well known for. "Can I help you?" He asked, sounding far too sarcastic for his own good.

The guy shook his head before shoving Vinny to the ground and stepping on his stomach, wobbling a little as he was very obviously drunk. "Gimme all your ffffuckin' money, smartass!" He slurred. His friend, a scrawny but mean-looking guy, patted Vinny down in search of a wallet, only finding his phone and nothing else, since Vinny, of course, hadn't brought his wallet with him, in case of a situation like this. 

"He ain't got nothin' on him, Maddie," Scrawny told his friend whose name was now discovered to be Maddie; Vinny couldn't help but internally chuckle at that.

Maddie dug his foot deeper into Vinny's stomach, Vinny grunting in pain but also getting slightly aroused, which, of course, he quickly willed away. "You don't carry any money, dumbass? What kinda fuckin' stupidass are you?!" Yelled Maddie while he once again applied more pressure to Vinny's torso.

Probably not very intelligently, Vinny replied with, "Do all your insults have to end with 'ass', or is that just because you can't think of anything else?"

In response, Maddie stomped on Vinny's ribs, a sickening _crack_ sounding out, signalling the breaking of two of them. It became very hard to breathe, Vinny balling his hands into fists as he tried not to panic as he felt any air he inhaled burn and ache in his chest, shallow and immensely painful pants the only way he could get oxygen into his lungs. Faintly, he heard Scrawny and Maddie book it, shouting about something or other that he couldn't decipher past the ringing in his ears. He tried to turn on his side, grab his phone, call for help, do _something_ besides just laying there on the concrete in agony, but he couldn't, and as his vision faded out to black, he couldn't help but think about how this was a pretty shitty way to go.

+

Waking up felt like being smashed over the top of his head with a pile of bricks, so Vinny decided to just not do it, instead opting for sleep. But unfortunately, as he'd already awoken and remembered that he was dead, he sat up and opened his eyes; the situation was regretted immediately when an unbelievable pain ripped through his chest and he gasped, feeling breathless for a moment as he clutched at his chest. "Where..." He mumbled; it took him a second to realize where he was, which was dumb considering it was his own apartment. But wait, wasn't he just outside? 

"You died," said a familiar voice, "or, at least you almost did."

Turning his head towards the source of the voice, Vinny saw Mark hovering with two legs over the others beside the sofa that he was reclining on, his aura a deep indigo and all four hands holding his knees. "You _really_ fucked up, huh, Vinny." It was more statement than question.

Vinny agreed with a heavy sigh, which didn't help the awful throbbing in his chest. "Yeah, you don't have to tell me," He mumbled, "Honestly, you should've let me die."

"Now why would I have done that?"

"Would've saved us all a lot of trouble,"

"Do you really think that little of yourself?"

"Absolutely, 100%."

Mark rolled his eyes and sighed, clearly not interested in Vinny's self-hatred. "If it'd been up to me, I would've let you die, but since I'm the holder of your contract now, I have to protect you."

"Wait," Vinny held up his hands, "why do you have my contract?"

"Jack gave it to me. He said that he didn't want anything to do with it now."

Well, guess that's it, then. The last good thing Vinny would ever have a chance at was now gone, and it was like a weight on his shoulders was pulling him into the ground, forcing all of the breath out of his lungs; it was as though he were drowning above water, the emptiness and guilt he felt like a virus eating him alive. All of the things wrong with his life had been brought upon himself due to his awful social skills and personal fears that were not only fucking stupid, but were also incredibly inconvenient for everyone around him. Honestly, "I just wish I was dead," Vinny mumbled, "maybe then life would be easier for everyone,"

"I don't know why you're being so dramatic," Mark said, the impatience and irritation in his voice extremely evident, "it's not even that bad."

It felt like it was. It felt like everything that could ever go wrong was going wrong and that it was all Vinny's fault, which it probably was. Unmoving from his position on the floor, he mumbled, "Just leave me alone, Mark."

There was an indignant huff, but Mark left, the only telltale sign that he'd ever been there being a small cloud of red smoke. In all reality though, Vinny was scared; this was the lowest he'd ever felt since college, the emptiness and overwhelming feeling of dread hanging over his head like the blade of a chopping block, ready to come down and cut his head off at any second— it just felt like he was going to die. A large part of him wished that he would, but another wanted him to try and at least fix things. But honestly, how could you fix something when you had nothing to work with?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vinny tries to look for Jack.

While lying on the floor of his living room, Vinny remembered something that Jack had said to him back when they'd first met— "You can see the demon world at any time". Did that mean that... he could find Jack to apologize? Hopefully, but probably not; it was worth a shot, at least. Slowly standing, he sent Joel a Skype message asking him if he knew how to cross over into the "demon world", since he'd done more interesting things while under contract than Vinny has.

Joel replied about ten minutes later, saying that he didn't know, but he'd ask Mark. Before Vinny could tell him no, don't do that, he was getting a reply from Mark saying that he just needed to will himself into the demon world and he'd be there— not too hard, since he was under contract and didn't have to use blood and spells in order to access it. Vinny said thanks for the help and then tossed his phone onto the sofa, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to better focus on the task at hand. He just had to will it, and then bam, he could see demons or whatever. Simple.

...Hmm. After a couple minutes of concentration, he opened his eyes and looked around; nothing had changed, seemingly. Did it not work? Raising an eyebrow, he shuffled into his bedroom to see if there was anything out of place in there— nope. Turning around, he headed back out to his living room just as he heard a voice say, "You seem lost,"

He whipped his head around to face the voice, finding himself face to face with a demon whose head was a few feet below his nine-foot ceiling, eight empty eyes staring down at him. They were accompanied by long, knife-like teeth that stuck out of his mouth and four horns that spiraled out to either side of them, as well as sharp claws that stuck out at least four inches on each of its six hands. There was a gaping wound that split open its stomach from end to end, spilling out black fluid and guts all over— it was both disgusting and horrifying. Ashy grey skin covered the beast from head to toe, with black hair wild and long sitting on the top of its head; Vinny couldn't find it in himself to look away. "Did you hear me?" It spoke again.

"Oh," Vinny mumbled, "Right. Yeah, I'm a little lost,"

"Where are you headed?" It asked, four of its tails snaking around to caress Vinny's left arm and right leg.

Very much in reflex, Vinny jerked backward at the contact, trying his best to play it off like he hadn't probably just disrespected the demon. "I'm looking for someone."

The creature cocked its head to the side, questioning as its tails once again fondled Vinny's limbs (this time wrapping around his wrists), "Do they have a name?"

"Yeah, it's Jack," Vinny tried not to think about the fact that he was being touched by this thing as he continued, "He also goes by Sean,"

The beast laughed, a thunderous, smooth noise that for some reason calmed Vinny's nerves immensely. "Is it that green-haired little Irishman? Yes, I do believe I know where he is," It stuck out one of its many hands with a toothy smile. "I'm Lonq'el, but you, little one, can call me Lonnie."

"Vinny," Vinny replied, shaking the hand offered to him somewhat precariously.

"Are you the one that he ended his contract with? I didn't even know that we could do that,"

"Yeah, I'm something, alright."

There was a flash of light, and then they were out on the street, Vinny stumbling on his feet at the sudden change of location in space and time; speaking of time, nothing in the street or on the sidewalk was moving— it was as though everything had stopped as it was when he'd entered the demon world. Lonnie chuckled and said, "Everything did stop, yes. Time doesn't pass for humans in this realm."

"What about for demons?" Vinny asked, no longer fazed by anything that these demons do.

"We live outside of linear time— we're everywhere and nowhere at once. We only experience time as you know it when we're in the human world."

"Ah yes I... understand."

"Good! Now that that's cleared up, we can start on looking for Jack."

Vinny furrowed his brows. "I thought you knew where he was,"

"I do, but I still have to track him down. My sensors work like a game of hot-and-cold,"

That didn't make any sense— or maybe it did and Vinny just wasn't registering it— but he nodded anyway and did a thumbs up, Lonnie smiling and revealing its pointy, kind of scary teeth when it did so. "Alright, are you ready?" Lonnie asked.

"For wha—"

Before Vinny could finish his sentence, Lonnie held onto his arm and sent them both careening through space, the whole world moving but they were standing still— or was it the other way around? Vinny couldn't tell, couldn't see anything but a blur of colours; nausea overwhelmed him like air conditioning in a small room, his churning stomach and fuzzy brain dizzying him to the point that he could no longer stand. He rested against Lonnie just as they came to a stop outside of an old, decrepit apartment building that looked like it hadn't been used in at least fifty years— definitely a demon hideout, or at least the gamer part of Vinny's brain thought so. "He should be in there somewhere," Lonnie told him.

"You can't be any more specific?" Vinny questioned.

"On the top floor, maybe."

'...Good enough, I guess,' Vinny thought with his mouth turned up and a brow raised; sheesh, this guy (demon? Whatever) was even more cryptic than Sean, if that was even possible. "Do we just go inside?" He asked.

"No, _you_ do,"

"What do you—"

There was the sound of air whooshing, and when Vinny turned around, Lonnie was gone. With a sigh, he made for the door of the building at a brisk pace, looking over his shoulder and around him for anyone who might call the cops on him for trespassing; however, there didn't appear to be any people around, or even any animals. Where the fuck was he? It was cold, everything was old and grey, and the sky was an unnatural blue and was eerily cloudless. Pulling his hoodie closer around him, he rushed inside the entrance and pushed the doors shut, the hinges letting out this awful screeching noise that had Vinny rubbing his ears afterwards.

The lobby of the apartment was covered in a thick layer of dust; dirt and leaves coated the floor like it was the forest, and he could see a thin haze hanging in the air that made everything appear washed-out and old, which it was. Turning towards the stairs, he made his way up them as carefully as he could since he wasn't sure if they were stable enough to support him, but after the first flight he figured they were okay and trudged on. His eyes wandered over everything surrounding him— with so much to see, he was unable to keep a handle on his own curiosity as to where the fuck he was; knowing demons, it was probably a _when._

On the third floor, he noticed that one of the doors to an apartment was open, his curiosity driving him to walk down the hall and take a peek inside. He stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame, the other lightly knocking on the splintered (but in overall good shape) wooden door; with how preserved and untouched everything was, he felt the need to do so, as though there might still be people around. However, when he tiptoed into the room to look around, he realized that there was no way there could be anyone— on the kitchen counter was a newspaper, dated April 26th, 1986. He'd been off about 20 years for how long the place had been abandoned, but 30 years was still a long time. There was more English writing underneath the date—

Oh. Pripyat, USSR. "Oh my God," He mumbled, dropping the newspaper back onto the counter and taking a few slow steps backwards, "I'm... in Chernobyl."

If that was true, then he couldn't be here for very long, or else he would like, die, or at the very least get extremely sick. With that in mind, he jogged out of the apartment and back towards the stairs, a sense of urgency twisting in his gut. 

Something creaked below him, and before Vinny could even process what was happening, he was falling.

+

Iron was the only thing Vinny could smell when he awoke some time later; it hung in the air like the scent of summer when it was humid. He realized, as he sat up, that the smell was coming from his nose, the back of his head, and the bone jutting out of his right leg from where it had broken. There were also probably some other cuts and bruises and whatnot on other parts of his body, but he didn't have the headspace to check since he was, you know, in unbelievably immense pain. God, how far had he fallen? Looking up, the hole he had fallen from was lit up until the second floor above him, but after that he couldn't see much— dizziness and lack of light made it kind of hard to tell. That, and the pain was fogging his brain; however, what he _did _know was that he needed to do something about his broken leg, so he used a nail to cut his pant leg open up to his knee, then used it to tear strips of his shirt off. After that, he managed to grab two pieces of hardwood flooring that had fallen with him and set them beside the scraps of cloth for a later date. Once he'd done that, he bit down on his shirt, took a few deep breaths, and then knocked his bone back into place while simultaneously screaming to alleviate the burning agony that shot through his leg, up his spine and through his arms to his head. Everything throbbed, but his leg was slowly becoming numb, so that was good.__

__Setting the break and wrapping it up was easy enough, but standing and walking was another thing entirely; he had no crutches, no way of standing without hurting himself, nothing. How was he going to get to Jack now? But, then again, Jack could not even be here anymore, or maybe he never was. That demon could've been told to send him away by Jack, or could've told Sean that Vinny was on his way up before he'd even entered the building— completely plausible, but irrational. Why would Jack do that? Did Vinny really think that he hated him that much?_ _

__Well... For what he did, probably. Why wouldn't he? He'd fucked up so bad that he didn't deserve anything less, and expected to be treated as much. Sighing, he tucked his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, finally letting himself pass out now that the adrenaline had drained out of his system; he was tired, hungry, in pain, and drained, and honestly, he just wanted to sleep and never wake up._ _

__

__Either fortunately or not, he awoke to find himself still in the apartment building in Pripyat, though in slightly less pain and not as tired as he was before. It was completely black around him, save for a few stray rays of moonlight shining through the dirty windows. Just then, Vinny remembered the radiation and fumbled with his phone to try and call Mark to warp him out of here, but he couldn't find it. Had he left it at home? No, he very clearly remembered putting it in his pocket; had it fallen out of his pocket then? Must have._ _

__Stumbling over the debris, he crawled around the floor in search of his missing phone, patting the hardwood and feeling around for anything that felt phone-like in shape and texture. Rocks, dust, wood planks, nails, more dust... Nothing to the right. Going back around, he found more of the same— maybe a few bugs, but no phone. Where the fuck..? "Looking for something?"_ _

__Vinny turned around— carefully— to see who was talking, sighing and turning back around when he realized who it was. "What do you want, Mark?" He asked._ _

__"Oh come on, don't act like you weren't about to just text me to come get you," Mark said, his hooves clicking against the floor as he, presumably, walked over to him._ _

__"Just..." Vinny began, feeling all of the fight drain out of him into the floor, his body drooping and head falling forward. "Get me out of here..."_ _

__Silence, and then Mark saying quietly, "Okay,"_ _

__Vinny closed his eyes, opening them a moment later to find himself in his apartment, his leg no longer broken but still in pain, his head not as foggy as it was earlier, and his whole body hurting a little less. "Thanks for healing me," He mumbled._ _

__Mark floated around to the front of him as he told him, "Seemed like you needed it,"_ _

__"Yeah," Vinny walked past Mark towards his sofa, limping a little bit as he did so, "now if only you could fix my inability to talk about things to people,"_ _

__He'd just barely sat down when Mark appeared next to him, posture casual. "You could always wish for it,"_ _

__"I don't think that would go over very well with Jack; he'd probably say something like 'you couldn't even talk to me without wishing for it? I knew you never cared about me',"_ _

__"That's a bit presumptuous,"_ _

__"It's the truth,"_ _

__"You're not really giving him any benefit of the doubt— maybe he won't act like that."_ _

__"You don't know that,"_ _

__"Then maybe you don't know him as well as you think you do."_ _

__Honestly, Mark was probably right— no, he was _definitely_ right. In all of his self-loathing and pity party, Vinny didn't realize or even _remember_ that Sean was not an asshole; he wasn't unforgiving or selfish, wasn't rude or abrasive, wasn't.... 'Like me,' He thought with sudden self-awareness. God, he'd been such an asshole this whole time, always thinking of himself and how the breakup(?) was affecting him that it never even occurred to him how Jack was feeling about all of this, how much he must be hurting. Vinny placed his head in his hands and sighed in deep exasperation at his own ineptitude, feeling a hand settle on his upper back, between his shoulder blades. "...There there," Mark whispered quietly, his hand moving up and down on his back._ _

__"Are you trying to comfort me?" Vinny asked with a brow raised, turning his head to look at him._ _

__The hand on his back faltered. "It's not working, is it?"_ _

__"Eh, you're getting there,"_ _

__Mark laughed lightly, as did Vinny, the lighthearted situation making him feel more at ease with everything. "Thanks for saving my life, again," He said._ _

__"Yeah, no problem," Mark replied softly; Vinny furrowed his brows and looked towards him, about to say something about it when Mark suddenly said, "Hey, can I ask you something?"_ _

__"Sure," Vinny nodded._ _

__There was a moment of silence as Vinny watched Mark fiddle with his tails and kick his hooves, actually showing an emotion other than pride and narcissism for once. "Uhm... So, remember how I like... made Joel mad at me?"_ _

__"Yeah?"_ _

__"Well, he still is, and I don't know what to do,"_ _

__Vinny turned up his mouth. "Apologize for being an asshole, is the course of action that I would take."_ _

__"But I don't understand what I did. I was just trying to help him."_ _

__"You did, but at what cost, dude. You have to think about it from Joel's point of view, about what he's feeling over what you did to him. Not everything has to be about you,"_ _

__Silence prevailed for a minute, followed by Mark mumbling, "To be honest, you should take your own advice,"_ _

__"You're probably right. Now get out of here and go find Joel."_ _

__A puff of smoke later, he was gone, leaving Vinny by himself once again. Sighing, he shuffled over to his computer and sat down, deciding that now would be a good time to distract himself with some editing that he'd been putting off; he opened his editing program and blasted David Bowie as he set to work._ _

__

___Knock knock knock._ "Vinny, it's Joel!" A muffled voice called out from the other side of the door._ _

__Vinny stood from where he'd been reading a music book on the sofa and set his book down, walking around the sofa towards the door so he could open it, one eyebrow raised in question; before he could speak, however, Joel said, "I think I might have a problem,"_ _

__Vinny wanted to say "here we go again", but when he saw the state of Joel's appearance— clothes disheveled, hair sticking up and messy, face red and pale blue eyes wide and kind of watery, he threw out that thought. "What's up, man? Here," He stepped out of the doorway, "come inside."_ _

___"Tacka,"_ Joel murmured, hands shoved in his front pockets, making his movements jerky and slow when he shuffled into the apartment. "Could I get some water, Vinny?"_ _

__"Yeah, I'll get it, go sit or something."_ _

__"Yeah,"_ _

__None of Vinny's five cups were clean, so he washed one, beginning to fill it with water when Joel said from the sofa, "On second thought, can I get some fuckin' alcohol or somethin'?"_ _

__This must be pretty serious, Vinny decided, pouring the water out and setting the cup on the counter; the cabinet above was where he kept his liquor, which wasn't much, just his Amaretto, a mostly full bottle of whiskey, and a partially empty bottle of cheap vodka— he could never really stand the expensive stuff. He figured that the vodka would be best, so he took it down and grabbed another glass for himself (because his rule was to never let a friend drink alone) before taking a jug of fruit juice out of the fridge and bringing it with him— along with the vodka and glasses— out to where Joel was. "Drank," He said, setting everything down on the coffee table._ _

__Almost immediately, Joel poured himself a glass of vodka and downed it, chasing it with some of that fruit juice straight out of the jug. "I wanna die," Joel said after he slammed the glass down._ _

__"What happened?" Vinny asked, also pouring a glass, but mixing it with fruit juice._ _

__Joel drank some more vodka, pausing after he did so to swallow and set his cup back down. He didn't maintain eye contact with Vinny at all, instead opting to stare down at his lap and fidgeting hands. "I'm..." He grumbled, "You're probably wondering what the fuck I'm doing here at ten PM,"_ _

__"Yeah, a little bit."_ _

__"Uhm, well... fuck,"_ _

__Vinny raised a brow as he drank, his washed-out green eyes looking at Joel over the lip of the cup with both curiosity and concern._ _

__"So, like, Mark came over to the motel I'm staying at, right? Fuckin', looking all sad and shit, and my ass, I wasn't feeling too great either, so when he started talking to me and apologizing for being an asshole, I was..." Joel ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "I was too fuckin' forgiving. He told me some shit about how he really liked me and wanted me back, or whatever, and then he... he kissed me."_ _

__Vinny nodded, not at all surprised but subtle about it. "And then what?"_ _

__"...We fucked."_ _

__"Oh."_ _

__"I want to die, dude. Fuck," Joel rubbed his face with his hands. "When I snapped out of my haze, I realized what I'd done and fucking booked it over here,"_ _

__"What about Mark?"_ _

__"He was asleep, or at least I think so. I don't know, I don't fucking know what to do man, I'm so scared!"_ _

__Hand out to comfort him, Vinny asked, "Why?"_ _

__In response, Joel took the cap off of the vodka and drank straight from the bottle for a good minute, slamming it down and saying, "Because I don't regret it."_ _

__"Oh," Vinny said, "Then why did you leave?"_ _

__"Impulse? I don't know! Shit..."_ _

__"Joel," Vinny began, "have you ever considered that maybe you actually like Mark?"_ _

__Shaking his head and chuckling, Joel answered, "Our roles have really fuckin' reversed, huh?"_ _

__Vinny laughed along with him, finishing his second glass of vodka and juice. "Yeah, I suppose they really have."_ _

__When the laughter— or, rather, the gentle chortling— had died down, Joel asked, "Can I stay here for tonight?"_ _

__"Sure man. I'll get you some blankets,"_ _

__Vinny stood up and took the vodka and juice back to the kitchen and shoved the both of them into the fridge, then headed down the hall to the closet at the end where he kept his blankets and took one out. After that, he nabbed a pillow off of his bed and then headed back out to Joel, who'd taken off his jeans and hoodie and was now dressed in a T-shirt and boxers._ _

__He helped Joel get all set up on the sofa before saying goodnight and shuffling back to his room, brushing his teeth and splashing water on his face in the bathroom, changing into a pair of pajama pants and then climbing into bed; he'd been doing a lot of sleeping lately, probably more than was healthy, but with everything that was going on in his life, it was kinda hard not to. It was an escape, a way to refresh and forget about his problems, so of course he was going to do it all the time. That, and he was just so tired. Just... his whole body was sore, and his brain was really fucking dead. If he was able to, he would sleep for a week, but that wasn't possible unless he went into a coma, so regular old sleep it was._ _

__Curled up in bed with his blanket tucked around him, he closed his eyes and let his consciousness slip away, his dreams plagued with Jack being just out of reach._ _


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> do things finally start to get better?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little bit of sexual harassment midway through the chapter, be warned

Around seven in the morning the next day, Vinny awoke to loud voices talking in the next room— not particularly shouting or angry, just very loud. By the time he had woken up enough to remember who and where he was, he deciphered the voices as Mark and Joel, and they were talking more quietly now about music, more specifically Joel's. As Vinny got up and started undressing so he could take a shower, he wondered when his apartment had started becoming everyone else's apartment feat. him; he realized, however, that he didn't really mind having people over so often— in actuality, it was pretty nice not to be alone. He just kind of wished that there was another demon in the equation.

He'd just barely turned the water on and closed the curtain when he heard a voice behind him. "Hey,"

Whipping around with wide eyes, he found himself staring into the face of Mark, his arms crossed and expression blank. "Mark? What the fuck are you doing in my shower? While I'm in here?" He asked, sounding only slightly upset but feeling more than he was showing.

"I needed to talk to you." Mark told him.

"Could've waited 'til I was, you know, not naked."

"I told you, I'm not interested in you."

"Don't flatter yourself, I'm talking about an invasion of privacy."

"Just shut up and let me talk,"

"That's all you ever do, but go for it I guess."

Mark rolled his eyes, but began to talk regardless. "I found out where Jack is,"

"Really? Where?"

"A place where only demons can go."

Vinny turned up his mouth. "Well, that sucks,"

"I have a solution though,"

Well now Vinny was just more suspicious. "Yeah, what?"

"You could possess me and use my body to go talk to him. That way, you won't die and he won't run away since he doesn't know it's you."

"How could I possess you, I'm a human,"

"Technically, it's not _possession,_ it's more along the lines of me taking your consciousness into my mind and having you control my body."

"So, possession,"

Mark huffed and rolled his eyes, seemingly annoyed, which would make sense since Vinny _was_ being pretty difficult. "God I hate interacting with you, you're almost as bad as a demon." He sneered.

Vinny shrugged.

"Look, are you in, or not?"

"Sure, why not. When are we doing this? After my shower?"

"I'll let you know."

Shady. Thankfully, after throwing up a peace sign, Mark left, leaving Vinny once again to think about how his life had gotten to this point and why he was still allowing it to happen. A part of his brain told him that it was because more had happened to him in the past two months than had happened in his entire life, and for once, he had something to look forward to when he went to sleep at night, albeit that it wasn't entirely positive. 

He was in the shower for at least an hour, doing nothing of extreme import other than sitting under the warm water so it would drive the deep chill that had settled inside of him out of his bones. After he'd done that, he washed his hair and body, brushed his teeth, and then got out, for some reason expecting Mark to be around— with that guy, you could never tell. Thankfully, however, he wasn't, and Vinny could get dressed in peace; when he went out to his living room, he found that not only was Mark gone, but so was Joel, which kinda sucked because he'd wanted to talk to him, but oh well. The growling of his stomach told him that he should probably eat something, however he didn't really want to make anything, so he just ordered a pizza, sat down on his sofa, and turned on his TV to watch a movie or whatever. Right now, he just wanted to relax. 

 

It was barely turning nine when Mark popped back up in Vinny's apartment, resting on his hip against Vinny's loveseat and using telekinesis to bring a slice of pizza to him from the coffee table. "Little early for pizza, don't you think?" He said flatly.

Vinny, not turning to acknowledge his presence, replied, "It's never too early to treat yourself," 

"Hm," Mark ate his slice and turned his head slightly towards the television, eying it with what kind of looked like disinterest, though Vinny couldn't really tell due to the lack of irises or pupils of any kind. "What is this?" 

"Steven Universe. It's alright so far,"

Instead of making fun of him for watching cartoons like he thought he would, Mark instead just sat down on the sofa next to him and watched it with him; there was a marathon of the show happening since it was on Hulu and Vinny had just kinda selected the first episode and went from there, so they ate pizza and sat in silence while bright colours and music flowed from the TV, filling the empty space between them with noise.

 

There was a pause between seasons that allowed for Vinny to stand up and throw the empty pizza box away, dusting away the crumbs from his shirt and pajama pants while he did so— that didn't stop his shirt collar from smelling like tomato sauce, though. He stopped at the fridge to take out a bottle of water before he shuffled back to his spot on the sofa, which thankfully hadn't been taken by his dog, who'd somehow still been fed and watered during his time away from home, both mentally and physically. 

As soon as he'd sat down, Mark paused the episode that was about to play and turned to him, leaning in just the smallest bit, eyebrows slightly furrowed but countenance otherwise devoid of all emotion. Vinny, who was by now used to the crazy whirlwind that was the personalities of demons, just faced him and questioned, "Do you need something?"

He felt both of Mark's tails brush over his legs and the hand he had resting on his knee— demons' tails seemed to have a mind of their own, so he didn't think much of it. "I..." Mark began slowly, "I don't know why I'm here,"

Vinny raised a brow. "Aren't you here to take me to Jack?"

"Yes, but..."

"But what? Why else would you be here?"

Mark leaned in further, one of his right hands raising up and stretching out as if to touch his chest, head tilting somewhat. "I think... because I want to know what you taste like,"

"What—"

Before he could get anything else out, Mark was kissing him, his four hands gripping his hair and shirt and neck, his fangs nipping at his lips and tongue; Vinny could feel one of his tails trying to snake its way into his boxers, which was definitely not okay and felt weird as fuck. "Mark—" He tried to protest while pressing his hands to Mark's chest to try and get him off. "Dude, come on—"

No reply was made. Mark began to kiss his neck, his hands simultaneously pushing his shirt up while yanking his pants and underwear down; his breath smelled like a forest fire and was exhaling heavily from his mouth, as though he couldn't catch his breath. There was something glowing in the back of his throat that had Vinny fearing that he was going to breath fire on him and burn him alive. "Stop, Mark, I-I don't— _fuck,_ man,"

He was cut off in his attempts to persuade Mark off of him by the touch of hot hands encircling his dick, which unsurprisingly was still soft, though not for long due to the attention it was receiving. At this point, Vinny was starting to become scared and pushed harder against Mark's chest and shoulders, kicking his legs out in an attempt to get them under Mark so he could kick him off, but Jesus were demons strong and nothing he did appeared to have an effect. His heart was racing and his hands were shaking, his mind fighting to look for a solution to get himself out of this situation before it escalated any further, but he couldn't concentrate with Mark tearing his shirt off and _biting his shoulder._ The sound of Mark's fangs puncturing his skin was nauseating, the sight of blood gushing from the wound and smearing across Mark's lips and chin was even more so. "You..." Mark said, his voice growly and layered over, "You confuse me so much, Vinny,"

"What?" Vinny murmured in an unsteady tone.

"When we're together... I sense that you like me, but then you treat me like shit. You help me and seem to care about me, but then you're difficult when we talk. Why?"

Nothing Mark was saying was registering because of the hand still moving on his dick, the blood trickling from the bite marks, and the fact that Vinny was being sexually assaulted, but he still did his best to answer. "I do c-care about you Mark, b-but I..." He hissed at the stinging from his wound. "I'm just an asshole t-to you because... you're one, too, a-and I... thought that that was, the best way to talk to you. _Shit,"_

Mark slowed his hand to a stop. "You care about me?"

"I guess! You're my friend, aren't you..?" Well, after this, that fact was debatable.

Mark was silent for a moment, his breathing still heavy, and then he kissed Vinny's neck again, just under his jaw, before pressing his lips to his, slipping his tongue into his mouth and turning his head in an attempt to deepen the kiss. Vinny dug his nails into Mark's shoulders and pushed him up as hard as he could, pounding on his back and trying to pull his face away from the lip lock, but to no avail; Mark was just too strong. When Mark did finally pull away, he told him, "I feel like you're the only one who understands me, Vinny,"

He used his knees to push Vinny's legs apart, grabbing his hips and pulling his lower body up onto his lap. Vinny felt like he was going to cry, and wanted to, but he was too scared to actually do so. "Please, Mark... if you let me go now, I'll forget this ever happened, okay? I won't—" He bit his bottom lip and paused to steady his voice. "I won't tell Joel or Sean, I-I'll keep it to myself, I promise," 

Mark didn't say anything for a second, but then he blinked all of his eyes in unison and furrowed his brows, one of his left hands coming up to grip his head, which lolled forward. "What the fuck..."

When he raised it, he glanced Vinny up and down and sat back and asked, tone confused, "Why are you naked?"

Vinny scrambled away from him while pulling up his boxers and pants, also very confused but not wasting the opportunity to get as far from him as possible. Mark held up two of his hands and said, "Hey, you're bleeding, dude, do you want me to—"

"You were just ra... touching me!" Vinny told him, pressing himself back against the arm of the sofa, "You were holding me down and..."

"I was what?"

"It just happened!" Vinny yelled. "You were going on about how I was the only one who understands you and you were fucking... _biting_ me and trying to jack me off!"

Mark slowly floated closer, hands still outstretched but his aura a pale blue, a wave of calming energy flowing out from him. "That wasn't me, alright? I don't know what the fuck happened, but I would never do that. I don't even like you," 

Vinny cautiously lowered his arms from their protective position, but still remained wary. "Then, why..."

As Mark healed the bite on his shoulder, he asked, "Have you been in contact with any other demons?"

"...Yeah, for a little. Its name was Lonnie, it was helping me look for Jack,"

Mark groaned. "Great, Lonnie. No fucking wonder,"

"What, is it bad?"

"You could say that, or you could say it's the fucking worst. It's a higher level demon with a taste for humans, particularly men, and since it has the power to control whoever it wants, it uses that to get some ass and fuck with some humans in the process; it usually only possesses demons to get the souls of humans without needing a contract. I'm guessing that's what happened here,"

Vinny narrowed his eyes. "How do I know you're not lying to me just to make me think you had nothing to do with it?"

"Vinny, don't flatter yourself. If I wanted to fuck you, I would've done it already. Besides," Mark snapped his fingers and repaired Vinny's shirt. "I don't want to mess things up with Joel, you should know that,"

Yeah, true. "So, what now?"

"Nothing, unless you're ready to possess me and go after Jack,"

Vinny shrugged and lazily stood up. "I suppose so. It's too bad you can't heal the nightmares I'm going to have about you,"

"Sorry, there's just some things my powers can't reach,"

They stood facing each other next to the coffee table, Vinny holding his forearm, Mark with his weight shifted to one leg and expression blank as per usual. "How does this work? Do I like, do something, or..?"

"Just stand there, all I need is your soul,"

"My what now?"

Without another word, the constant gaping wound in Mark's chest began to pour out black smoke and ooze, many small, black hands made of mist clamoring out towards Vinny, climbing into his mouth and up his nose; he could feel something tearing inside of him, as though his very consciousness was getting yanked out of his body with unimaginable pain shooting all across his skin, and then nothing. "Did it work?" He heard Mark— no, _himself—_ ask. Wait, what?

 _Welcome to my vessel, Vinny,_ Said Mark, but not out loud.

Vinny blinked, and then he could see himself— or rather, his body slumped on the love seat, head down and hands in his lap. "This is fucking weird," He said, hearing Mark's voice externally but his own internally.

_Yeah, it takes some getting used to, but I'll just give you the crash course since we don't have a lot of time. One, this is an extremely intimate thing to do, so don't tell Joel—_

"What? What do you mean 'intimate'?"

_As in, only couples do this._

"Would've been nice if you'd told me this earlier, jackass,"

_For the love of God Vinny, I'm trying to help you here. We'll only need to do this until we get to where Jack is, and then you can go back into your body. I found out that when humans de-possess a demon, they're as invulnerable as they are for like, fifteen minutes,_

"So I'll only have fifteen minutes to talk to Jack before I die?"

_Basically, yeah._

"Sounds fair to me. Let's go,"

_To warp, just think of Jack. Don't forget to grab your body._

Right, he was gonna need that. Thanks to the strength of Mark's vessel, picking up his body was easy, but warping, however, wasn't. _Just think about Jack, how hard can it possibly be?_ Mark said (thought?) in a snarky voice.

"I'm trying, man, it's not as easy as you made it out to be," Vinny said, closing his eyes tightly and twisting up his mouth. 

_Whatever, just hurry up, I wanna go home._

Vinny rolled his eyes, but tried harder, thinking of Jack and his pale face and empty eyes as intently as he possibly could until he heard a whooshing sound and felt new ground beneath his feet— er, hooves. Upon opening his eyes, he found himself to be standing in the middle of an empty, wine red room, with a balcony in front of him; the French doors were open and letting in a breeze that ruffled his hair and blew the sheer window treatments around, the thin fabric softly rustling, creating the only sound in the room. He could see Jack leaning against the railing outside, catching glimpses of him past the treatments that were gently moving across the open doorway and obstructing his field of view. _Ok, time for me to bounce. Later,_ Mark said, and then Vinny was back in his own body, lying on the floor with Mark disappearing out of the corning of his eye. Everything ached a little, but he otherwise felt fine, standing up and brushing himself off out of habit; when had he changed into jeans, a leather jacket, his spiked collar, and boots? He didn't even own a pair of boots, let alone a leather jacket. Whatever, he didn't have time to focus on that right now. He took a couple deep breaths to calm his nerves, ran a hand through his hair, and then walked up to Jack at a steady pace, feeling his heart skip as he looked him over; he'd almost forgotten how much he'd missed those horns and four arms, that tail and those huge gauges. To most people, Jack was a monster, but to Vinny, he was the most beautiful creature in the world. "Jack," He said, voice more breath than anything.

He saw Jack's frame stiffen before turning around, his six eyes wide and mouth full of fangs slightly agape. _"Vinny?"_ His voice was barely above a whisper. "Wh-wha-what are ye d-doin' here? How?" 

"I'm here to talk," Vinny took a couple steps closer, noting the way Jack turned away from him and hating it. "Here me out, please?"

Jack didn't say yes, but he didn't say no, either, just kind of standing there with a frown and an upturned mouth, his hands gripping the guardrail and tail flicking harshly. Shifting his weight, Vinny began to speak. "I know I fucked up when I didn't tell you that I have commitment issues, and I know I fucked up pretty much everything else that has to do with you, like being a self-centered asshole and denying the fact that I'm basically in love with you at this point, but I—" Pausing to step closer, he reached out a hand to set it on Jack's forearm, which was pulled away, "I want to do better. I want this to work, this one thing in my life that actually makes me happy and not just slightly less neutral than normal. _You_ are what I want, only you— I don't care that you're a demon, I don't care that you have horns and a tail and six eyes that are white and empty, I don't care that it scares the fuck out of me whenever you smile or hold my hand or tell me that I'm pretty, I just want to be with you. You can hate me forever, you can leave me and call me an asshole and a piece of shit for what I did, because I deserve it. I just..." He lowered his head for a moment, raising it again with his eyes a little watery. "Needed to tell you how I felt, and to try and fix things between us, because fuck, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I can't let myself ruin things for me, for you, just because I'm scared of one day finding out that you don't love me anymore. There's worse things in life than that. So," Fiddling with his hands, he finished, "Do you want to hit me now, because this is your chance,"

Nothing was said for a few seconds, just Jack looking down at the ground with his arms crossed, one leg over the other as he rested on his butt against the railing, Vinny still fidgeting his fingers and chewing his bottom lip, awaiting his response with felicity. Finally, it came, Jack still unmoving, "I have'te admit, I didn't t'ink ye h-had-had-had t'e balls t' come all t'e way ou-ou-out here t' apologize t' me," 

"To be fair, I tried to visit you in Chernobyl, but I fell through the floors and broke every part of my body, so this is nothing,"

Jack chuckled softly in his chest, making Vinny's own tighten as he smiled a little. "I'd be lyin' if I-I-I-I said I didn't m-miss ye and didn't regret de way we left t'ings," He faced Vinny, revealing his wet eyes and kind of trembling lips. "I've _really_ missed ye, V-Vi-Vinny,"

"I've missed you too, Jack,"

"But I... I don't kn-know-know if I can come back jest yet. I'll need some time t'e t'ink o-over what ye've sa-sa-said t' me,"

"I understand, Sean. I'll wait for you until you are,"

Jack nodded and let his head loll to the side, and then Vinny was back in his own apartment once again, missing Jack's scent already.

+

Vinny checked his phone for the first time in a few days to find that Mike, Joe, and Billy had been blowing up his notifications— mostly about where the fuck he is and why he's not returning their calls and texts. Great. Huffing out a sigh, he texted them all back, telling them that he'd been kind of under of the weather lately and was also mugged and lost his phone for a while as well, so it'd been a pretty horrible week for him; thankfully, no one asked for any other details and let him be, only talking to him more to ask if he was okay and to let him know that their last studio day was today. Oh yeah, the album, he'd pretty much forgotten about that. He told them that he was on his way to the studio right now, ETA ten minutes or so. Putting his phone away, he sighed and got up from his computer with a huff because damn, he really didn't want to have to go anywhere today, but it looked like he would have to. It was starting to get cold in New York, so he threw on his hoodie and slipped into his shoes before grabbing his keys and phone and heading out into the chill October air.

Outside, he hailed a cab since he didn't have time to wait for an Über and took it all the way to the recording studio, checking social media on his phone so he could catch up on whatever he may have missed in the time he was "gone", quote unquote, i.e busy being an asshole; there wasn't much to see besides memes, people asking the other streamers where the fuck he'd been since no one had heard anything from him and the streamers replying saying that they had no idea, either, as well as some people saying that maybe Vinny had been kidnapped or was dead or something equally as outlandish. He tweeted out that he'd been taking some personal days due to the fight he'd had with Jack, and now that they'd talked it out, he felt a lot better and would be returning to his regular streaming schedule within the day. With that, he put his phone away and looked out of the car window for the short remainder of his drive to the recording studio, which was about two minutes; paying his fare and getting out, he walked into the building and down to the production room, whereupon he was immediately swarmed by everyone and their mother with their voices full of worry and expressions relieved. "Dude, we just saw your tweet," Mike told him, "What happened with you and your boyfriend?"

"Didn't you see the video?" Joe commented. "They got into a fight and I'm pretty sure he hit him, right Vinny?"

All eyes were on him, but he was too busy taking his guitar out of its case and tuning it in the instance of them needing to use it for something. When he registered the silence in the room as everyone waiting for his reply, he looked up to them and asked, "Huh?"

"You and Jack, what happened?" Mike reiterated.

"I'd rather not talk about it, if that's alright with you," Vinny said kind of plainly, lowering his head back to his guitar. There was silence for a beat, and then they all went back to whatever they'd been doing prior to Vinny walking in the door. 

 

Satisfaction was all Vinny could feel as he listened to the final version of the last song on the album; it was happening, his very first album from his own band was finally done, and now all he needed to do was sit back and wait for production of the physical albums and merch to be done before the music could be released, and then his, Mike's, and Joe's dreams could be realized. He felt a sense of euphoria as he shook everyone's (like, four people) hand and thanked them all for their hard work, a dreamlike high almost that had him floating through the rest of his day— or, at least until he was back home again. 

Even after he'd turned on the lights, it was still too dark in his apartment. Sighing, he kicked off his shoes and headed past his kitchen to the living room, taking off his hoodie and setting it down on the back of the sofa— "...don't know what you want,"

Voices from his bedroom down the hall trailed out to his ears, causing him to stop where he was so he could hear better. "Why are we talking about this here? You have an apartment," He heard Mark say.

"Those walls are too fuckin' thin, someone could hear," Joel said.

"Fair enough, I guess. So..."

"Are you gonna answer my question, or am I gonna sit here with my thumbs up my ass?"

"Do I want to date you?"

"Yeah,"

"Well... situationally,"

_"Situationally?"_

"I mean, in the sense that you're going to die someday and I won't, so,"

"Won't I turn into a demon after I die?"

"Yeah, but there's no guarantee that—"

"It just sounds like you're making excuses to not date me, asshole,"

Vinny heard Mark sigh. "Alright honey, if it's what you want, we can date,"

"But do _you_ want to be with me?"

"I do,"

"Then alright. I dunno why this had to be so fuckin' hard..."

Mark laughed. "Yeah, I'm like that,"

Laughter, then silence. Vinny waited a little before he crept down the hall to his room and pushed the door open to find that they'd gone, the lingering scent of fire the only telling clue that they'd ever been there in the first place. Well... "At least they finally worked out their relationship problems," Vinny mumbled to himself. He rolled his neck and hummed quietly to himself to stave off the silence as he changed into his pajamas, working out in his mind what games he could stream tonight.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go back to normal. For now, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this.....took forever. my writing mojo kinda took a shit for a little, but i think im back to relative normality

      In all honesty, Vinny did _not_ want to talk about what'd happened between him and Jack, but there were so many fucking people in the chat of his Twitch stream that he couldn't ignore it, so after about an hour of him streaming, he finally took a break between games to talk; the tone of his voice must've been telling about how little he cared to discuss his personal life, because there was an influx of messages saying that he didn't have to talk about it if he didn't want to. "It's alright, I figure that if I don't at least mention it on stream then I'll just get more people asking about it, so... yeah," He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair, readjusting his headphones on his head. "As you guys probably know, Jack and I had a pretty bad fight a week or so ago about something stupid I said, and we broke up. Well," Vinny shrugged, "not that we were ever really dating in the first place, but regardless, shit sucked and it was all my fault for being an asshole and thinking only of myself and my feelings. Long story short, a while back, we finally talked, and things are looking promising, so that's that. While we're on the subject of finished stuff, the album is finally done. You can preorder it on the Red Vox website, which is on my Twitter or linked in the chat, but it's not coming out for another week at the most, so you have some time; there's shirts and posters, too, if you're into that sorta thing,"  
      He read the chat as he scratched the back of his head. "'Can you buy it digitally too'? Yeah, of course, from either Bandcamp or the website. When it comes out, you'll get an email with the download link. But anyway," He flapped his hand, "enough of that shit, we're here to play games, and I happen to have a few weird ones lined up, so let's go."

      Later that night, after the stream and a snack, Vinny managed to muster up the motivation to check and reply to all of the emails that had begun piling up in his inbox; God, it'd been what, four days since he'd last checked them? He typically tried to go through them around 2pm every day so as to keep up with the sheer volume, but since so much happened the past few days he'd never really gotten around to it. It's a chore, but... something to do.  
      There was nothing of great import in his inbox— fanart, people asking him to do requests, some wanting to talk, business inquiries... nothing that great. He replied to the emails as he brushed his teeth and took a piss, mindlessly responding though trying to be sincere regardless; he wasn't in the right headspace for anything regarding communicating with other people—which was most of the time—especially now, when he'd rather be off doing something else like—  
      "H-hey,"  
      Vinny froze where he stood in front of the bathroom sink, washing his hands— did he just hear..?  
      "Vinny," That oh-so-familiar voice spoke again, "Et's m-me,"  
      Slowly, Vinny turned the faucet off and dried his hands, leaving his phone next to the sink as he turned and walked towards his room, his eyes growing ever wider upon seeing the only demon he ever wanted to own his soul standing at the foot of his bed, fidgeting with his claws and gauges. "Jack," Vinny barely whispered. Heart skipping in his chest, he stepped closer to him and fought the urge to leap into his arms, instead opting to just stand in front of him with a small simper cracking the otherwise stoic expression on his face. "Didn't expect to see you here," He said, "I don't even have my Sunday best on,"  
      Jack laughed lightly and tipped his face to the ground, Vinny seeing his tail slowly swish back and forth, curling in on itself and then flicking back out. He couldn't help but wonder what that meant in terms of mindset and body language. "Well, I t-t'o-t'ought about what ye s-said, an' I t'ink I could give ye anot'er ch-chance. T'at is..." Jack rocked back on his hooves. "If ye still-still want te,"  
      Shrugging, Vinny hid his smirk and made a thoughtful noise, lifting his gaze to a corner of the room as though trying to think. "Maybe, maybe not," He looked to Jack. "Give me 3-5 business days to get back to you,"  
      "If yer go-gonna be like t'is, I might as w-well not even stay—"  
      Vinny latched onto Jack's arm with his stomach dropping through the floor, spluttering out, "No no I was joking, I was joking, please don't leave,"  
      The sly smirk Jack tossed back to him as he turned around to face him once again had Vinny rolling his eyes and smiling inwardly. "You're such a fucker,"  
      "Ye st-started it," Jack teased.  
      Silence ensued, not at all uncomfortable, Vinny eying Jack up and down and him not being able to tell if Jack was doing the same, doing his best to try and think of something to say; however, he was beaten to it by Jack, who played with his tail as he questioned gently, "D-don'tche o-owe me a kiss er s-somet'in'?"  
      "Hmm, let me think..."  
      Just as Jack opened his mouth to protest, Vinny kissed him— deeply, or as deep as he could go without using tongue. That ended up happening anyway, Vinny pulling Jack closer to him by the dip of his lower back and a hand on his shoulder, Jack gripping his upper back and hips with both sets of hands; Vinny wondered what kind of things he'd be able to do to him with that many hands. The thought and imagery turned him on more than it probably should have. "I c-cen feel ye gettin' h-hard," Jack breathed when they briefly pulled back from each other to catch their breaths, "T-t'inkin' about me?"  
      "Kinda hard not to," Vinny whispered, face flushing, "We're making out,"  
      "T'at's t-true,"  
      They kissed again for a couple seconds, Vinny exhaling shakily at the feeling of Jack palming his dick through his pajama pants, gripping Jack and sucking air in through his teeth. "So sensitive..." He hissed, "Haven't come in forever,"  
      "Well, n-now ye cen come f-fer me, can't y-ye?"  
      Vinny didn't like how much Jack's touch was making him tremble, but it also excited him, fueling the lust that was bubbling in his abdomen like boiling water and just as hot, knowing full well that he wasn't going to last very long at all after not having come for so long— and, y'know, because it was Jack jerking him off in his pants and not himself.  
      His gut throbbed, feeling his orgasm steadily approach ever closer, his hips rolling into Jack's hand and mouth hanging open, desperate breaths escaping it in heavy exhales. "Ye com-comin'? Ye comin' f-fer me, baby?" Jack moaned, his breath raising goosebumps across Vinny's skin from his neck.  
     "Fuck,"  
     "Ye w-want me ta f-fu-fuck ya, er do ye want'a fuck m-me instead? I b-bet ye'd look s-so good with a dick fill-filling up yer _ass,"_ Jack gripped his ass as he said that, earning him a groan.  
      Just as Vinny was about to come, his phone rang; judging from the ringtone, it was the studio. "Shhh _it,"_  
      "D-do ye hafta ta-take it?" Jack's hand had stilled on his dick, but he gave Vinny another half-hearted tug.  
      "It's the... studio, I think," Vinny pecked Jack's lips, then turned away from him so he could grab his phone from the bathroom counter; it indeed was the studio, though why they would call this late was beyond him. He took the call anyway. "Hey, what's up?"  
      _"Vinny, it's Joe. I'm with Mike and Billy at the studio. You need to come down here,"_ Joe's voice seemed distressed.  
      "Why? What's going on?"  
      _"Someone leaked our fucking album, is what's going on! I don't know who and I don't know how, but they put it all on YouTube!"_  
      "Shit," Vinny swore under his breath, rubbing his face and sighing. "Alright, I'll be over there in a second,"  
      _"Thanks dude. See ya,"_  
      "Yeah,"  
      Joe hung up, and Vinny walked back out to his room and started getting dressed, not even hearing Jack talk to him until he was tapped on the shoulder; he looked up from pulling on his pants to see Jack standing beside him, looking at him expectantly. "What?" He questioned.  
      "I a-as-asked ye what happened like t'ree t-times," Jack answered, his hand falling back to his side and his weight shifting to his other leg.  
      "Oh," Vinny yanked his jeans on the rest of the way and buttoned them, explaining, "Someone leaked my album, so I have to go down to meet up with Joe and the others to try and find out how, or something like that. All he really said was to meet up with them,"  
      "Ah, a-alri'te. I'll see y-ye later, t'en?"  
      Vinny paused in slipping his shoes on to kiss Jack, smiling softly at him and saying gently, "I'll be back to finish what we started,"  
      "A bit t're-t'reatening, but hot," Jack joked.  
      Once Vinny had his shoes and jacket on, he was off, taking an Uber to The Red Room.

      It didn't seem like anyone was there when he arrived— the front lights were off and the shutters were drawn, making the building seem very much closed. Vinny pulled his jacket closer around him and shuffled down the side alley to the back entrance, which wasn't locked but still had no lights on inside; he felt kind of uneasy walking into the building. To counteract that, he called out, "Guys, are you here?"  
      No response. Okay... Vinny turned up his mouth and took out his phone, unlocking it so he could call Joe—  
      "Fancy seeing you here,"  
      That voice... Lonnie? Turning around, Vinny came to a stop in the middle of the hallway that led to the recording rooms and found himself face-to-chest with the demon from before, though its appearance was more sinister. Vinny didn't want to think about what it did to get like that. "Oh, it's you," He mumbled, shoving his hands in his coat pockets to keep them steady.  
      "I'm assuming you know about me and who I am by now, correct?" Lonnie said, its multiple tails flickering close to Vinny but not touching him.  
      "Just a little bit, yeah,"  
      Lonnie's smile was devilish and had Vinny's legs weakening in fear. "Well, I am sure you know that it was never my intention to hurt you. I like you, after all,"  
      "What about when you possessed Mark and tried to have sex with me? Or did you forget that little factoid?" Vinny dropped his head to the side and raised an eyebrow.  
      The laugh Lonnie let out was unnerving, to say the least. "Do you think I would do that to someone I like? I may be a demon, Vincent, but I'm no monster," Lonnie crossed its many legs and hovered lower to the ground so that it was eye level with Vinny, simpering gently and curling its tails around Vinny's wrists and ankles. "Whatever Mark told you was a blatant lie. I have had a bad reputation with many of the lesser devils due to an incident a long time ago over a human that fell in love with me and requested for me to have his contract instead. When his demon found out, I was shunned and given two tier drops. I have never stolen anyone's contracts or souls, it is merely my reputation proceeding me,"  
      Ehh... Judging by the expression on its face, it was being sincere. But why would Mark lie to him about that? He said he didn't want to ruin his relationship with Joel, so why would he— "I can see you're thinking very hard about this," Lonnie said, its tails continuing to caress his limbs in a way that would've been soothing if he wasn't uncomfortable as shit.  
      "I'm just... trying to figure out who to believe," Vinny murmured.  
      "I'll tell you what," Lonnie sat up straight, "I will possess you and transfer my memories into your mind, and then you can see if I am lying. Does that seem fair?"  
      "Why are you trying so hard to make me forgive you? I don't even know you," Vinny furrowed his brows and shifted his weight.  
      "As I have said, I like you. I would like to get to know you,"  
      "How, like romantically?"  
      "If you'd like," Lonnie's eyelids slid halfway shut. "You appear to be my type,"  
      "I'm..." Vinny's brain became a little fuzzy, and he felt his body move closer to Lonnie without him telling it to do so. "I'm... with somebody..."  
      "Do not worry, we'll only be together a short while,"  
      Bright flashes of images, screaming, the face of a man with black curly hair and dark skin melting off of the bone and muscle, hellfire burning brightly in somewhere dark, then a barrage of pictures— snapshots of memories, it seemed like, telling the same tale that Lonnie had told Vinny, only in greater detail. It ran all the way up to what Lonnie had been doing the day Mark had attempted that shit with him, which was chatting up a human male about a contract; it then stopped, and Vinny was back in the studio hallway, resting on his knees with his head hanging low and blood dripping from his nose. "Ah... what the fuck..." He grumbled, pressing the heel of his hand to his nose to stop the bleeding.  
      "Now you see that I speak the truth," Lonnie said, it taking Vinny's hand and helping him up to his feet.  
      "But..." Vinny lowered his hand and sniffed, feeling the flow of blood slow to a stop— Lonnie had healed him, he assumed. "Why would Mark lie to me about that?"  
      "Perhaps you should ask him,"  
      Jesus, Vinny was immensely confused; was Lonnie telling the truth or was Mark? There were multiple ways in which each demon could be lying, but they couldn't both be— he just needed to hear Mark's side of the story to discover who. "I'm going to leave now," He mumbled as he turned back around towards where he'd originally been heading, "Please don't follow me,"  
      "I would not dream of it,"  
      Sure enough, he wasn't followed.

      No one was in the building, so Vinny figured that Lonnie had faked the call to him just to get him down there; he was still wary of the demon, which he felt was warranted considering what had just transpired. Just being in the building was giving him the creeps, the lingering paranoia of expecting Lonnie to pop out of a dark corner at any moment and swallow him whole kind of annoying. "Fuck this," He muttered to himself; texting Jack, he asked to be warped home as soon as possible, and he was, finding Joel to be there, as well, chatting idly with Jack about something he didn't get to hear before he arrived and distracted them both.  
      "He-hey-hey," Jack greeted him, standing from the sofa to kiss him; however, Vinny wasn't really in the mood for that, which Jack must've sensed, because he leaned away from him and settled for taking his hand instead. "How'd e-et go?"  
      "Uhm, well," Vinny's eyes flitted to Joel and he cringed inwardly, but both couldn't bring himself to lie and couldn't think of one to tell, so he simply said, "My album didn't actually get leaked, it..." He turned up his mouth, continuing, "It was a fake call made by Lonnie to get me somewhere alone,"  
      "Wh-wh-wha-what? _Lonnie?"_ Jack cried, clinging to Vinny's shoulders. "Did h-he do a-an-anyt'in' t'ya?"  
      "No, he just wanted to—" Vinny looked over to Joel, who was furrowing his brows in confusion. "Tell me that he never wanted to hurt me, because he liked me, and that he didn't have anything to do with what happened between me and... and Mark,"  
      "Mark?" Joel stood up and took a couple steps closer to him, his expression one of bewilderment that was beginning to border on upset. "What happened between you 'n Mark? What're ya talkin' about?"  
      Vinny shifted his weight as his eyes darted around Joel's face, never looking directly at him. "A few days ago, when Mark helped me find Jack so I could talk to him, we were sitting on the sofa watching TV together, and when we were taking a break to like, get water and whatever, he kind of... tried to have sex with me,"  
      Needless to say, Joel was a little dumbstruck. "He— No, _what?"_  
      "It was like he was possessed, which turned out to be the case, and when he snapped out of it, he told me that this demon named Lonnie liked to control people in order to get more souls, and that it liked to fuck with human guys; he told me that since I met up with him, it was likely that it'd been following me and had attempted to get at me through him, through Mark, since he was the holder of my contract at the time,"  
      The relief on Joel's face was enough to put Vinny's mind at ease somewhat, but there was still the topic of Lonnie saying that it didn't have anything to do with it. It was probably in everyone's best interests if he didn't bring that particular thing up just yet. Not until he was sure of who was lying. "So, t'a-t'at's i-i-it?" Jack asked. "T'at's all d-dat ha-happen'd?"  
      Obviously not, but Vinny wasn't about to say that with Joel here. "Pretty much, yeah,"  
      "Mm," Jack crossed his four arms, head falling to the side.  
      Vinny pretended not to see and turned away to instead face Joel, who was on his phone texting someone— presumably Mark— and shifting his weight. There was brief silence, followed by the vibrating of Joel's phone, then Joel himself saying, "Looks like I have to go,"  
      "That's too bad, I was hoping we could hang out today," Vinny said, only half-lying.  
      "I'll probably be back later today, don't get yer fuckin' panties in a twist,"  
      They looked to each other, Joel throwing up a peace sign, Vinny giving a nod, then Joel was gone in a puff of smoke. Vinny barely had the chance to relax before Jack was talking to him, Vinny hearing him walk closer to him, the clicking of his hooves the only sound in the apartment. "'M guessin' wh-whatever else ye 'n Lo-Lo-Lonnie talked about ye didn't want'e s-sa-say-say in front'a Joel,"  
      Turning and falling back onto the loveseat that faced his sliding glass patio door, Vinny sighed inaudibly and rubbed his forehead, raking his fingers back through his hair as he told Jack, "Yeah, I guess you could say that,"  
      "W-wha-wha-what i-is it?"  
      "Well," Vinny shrugged one shoulder, "it's just that, it told me that it didn't have anything to do with Mark trying to do that shit. It even possessed me and showed me its memories so it could prove it,"  
      Jack narrowed his eyes the slightest bit and his brows furrowed. "Ye l-let Lonnie po-possess ye?"  
      "No?" Vinny's expression was slightly irate at best. "I told it no, but it made me by fucking with my body so I couldn't do anything about it,"  
      Nodding in understanding, Jack made a vague motion with his hands and said, "Wh-wha-what're ye gonna d-do now? Do y-ye believe it?"  
      "To be entirely honest Jack, I don't know. Like—" Vinny threw a hand in the air, "I want to believe that Mark wouldn't betray both Joel and I like that, but at the same time, Lonnie had an alibi for that day. And, Mark's a bit of an asshole,"  
      "He wouldn't _do_ t-t'at, t'ough,"  
      Throwing both hands in the air this time, Vinny made the noise for "I don't know" and sunk back further into the sofa. "Yeah, I suppose you're right,"  
      Holding up his phone and dropping his head to the side with an exasperated expression, he unlocked it and sent Mark a text asking him to come to his place alone, then dropped his phone back onto the sofa. "Guess we'll just have to see what he says,"

      Jack didn't stick around to find out, unfortunately, and Vinny was left to interrogate Mark by himself, him showing up only moments after Jack had taken his leave, looking not at all interested in seeing Vinny for the way-too-many-th time these past three weeks. "What the fuck could you _possibly_ want now, you overdramatic, white bread, 'I can't show outward emotions because of my crippling depression' piece of shit?"  
      Merely unembellished while continuing to lie back on the sofa, Vinny said flatly, "No need for name-calling, Mark," He raised a brow. "Were you in the middle of something?"  
      Mark was clearly miffed, but he told him, "As a matter of fact, yes. I was about to get dicked down,"  
      Vinny snorted.  
      Mark sharply waved his hand in the air as if to shoo his previous comments away, grumbling, "Anyway, just tell me what you need,"  
      Standing, Vinny shoved his hands in his front pockets while speaking, keeping his gaze steady on Mark. "As you probably already know from Joel, I met with Lonnie today; granted, not of my own free will, but," He shrugged. "To nutshell it, it told me that you weren't possessed by it when you tried to sexually assault me. It even showed me its memories to prove it,"  
      "So what're you saying? That I did that out of my own free will? I don't even remember what happened!" Mark's brows were furrowed and the side of his lips pulled up a bit to reveal his ungodly sharp teeth.  
      For obvious reasons, Vinny did his best to suppress how much that scared him. "I'm not saying anything, just that I trust you more than I trust Lonnie, but only one of you can be lying, and I need to find the truth,"  
      Floating onto his side with one hand propping his head up, Mark checked the claws of his free hand and mumbled, "Why bother? It's obvious you've already made up your mind as to who is lying,"  
      "And you call me overdramatic,"  
      _"Tch,"_  
      "Click your tongue all you want, I still need to look through your memories,"  
      Standing back up straight, Mark sighed heavily. _"Fine,_ but you owe me after this,"  
      Vinny rolled his eyes and stood in front of Mark, shifting his weight. "Like I could give you anything,"  
      "Don't be too sure, Vincent,"  
      Vinny ignored that Mark had even said anything and waited to be possessed, the action coming soon afterwards.  
      It was much like last time, only not as long, as Mark had been a demon for a much shorter amount of time than Lonnie; when the day in question came around, sure enough, a chunk of Mark's memory was missing, only the before and after of the incident revealing itself, with a brief pocket of time jumping in where some kind of Lonnie ghost melded into Mark's body, then back out again. Clearly, Lonnie had been lying. "Could've figured," Vinny commented as he and Mark separated and he, again, held his hand to his nose to stop the blood flow.  
      "See? Now can I go home?" Mark's tone was unbearably annoyed.  
      Vinny waved him away, and then he was gone. Which, if Vinny was being honest, was a huge relief— the less he had to interact with Mark, the better. Although they'd gotten along slightly okay while he and Jack hadn't been on speaking terms, their personalities still didn't mesh very well; even physically, there was no compatibility— Vinny wasn't into the buff type, and likewise Mark wasn't fond of the tall, lanky type. Well, Vinny wouldn't consider himself _tall,_ more of average height, but regardless, it was obvious that Mark didn't like him in any sense. The feeling was mutual, about a dozen times over.  
      "H-how-how'd et go?" Came Jack's voice from his right.  
      Vinny turned to face him while slipping a cigarette out of the pack in his back pocket and putting it in his mouth, saying, "About as well as you'd expect when Mark and I interact,"  
      Jack shrugged. Vinny sighed, scratching his hairline with his ring finger and then running his hand back through it, mumbling, "Well, at least we're finally alone,"  
      Jack cringed. "About t-t'at, I-I-I actually needta get goin'," He rubbed one of his left hands over one of his right arms, left hoof tapping the floor. "Ye-yer not'e only s-soul I got on contract,"  
      Vinny didn't let his face break into the expression of disappointment it so badly wanted to. "Oh, so, no continuation of earlier, then,"  
     Jack stepped forward and kissed Vinny's cheek, holding his shoulders with an apologetic tone in his voice when he spoke. "Sorry, Vin-Vin-Vinny,"  
     Holding one of the hands on his shoulders, Vinny simpered the smallest bit and responded, "It's alright, I won't keep you,"  
      Green smoke and the lingering scent of burning wood marked Jack's exit, leaving Vinny alone once again. Emptiness filled his chest like a lead balloon, weighing him down to lay on the sofa in front of him, curled up on his side facing his slightly dusty workstation and desk— God, it was so fucking quiet. Unbearably, almost. Granted, he could hear Molly in the bedroom down the hall playing with one of her toys and the neighbors a couple apartments away blasting incomprehensible music, but the muffled silence of it all made it feel as though he were being blanketed by white noise; it was a heavy sensation, but also anxiety-inducing. Rolling onto his back, he reached out and felt around the coffee table for the remote to his stereo, not finding it there so he checked the floor beside the sofa and stumbled his fingers over it just slightly underneath him. He pulled it out and lifted it up in the air so that the sensors would pick up that he was pressing the power and play buttons; after a couple small beeps, Talking Heads began to resonate from the speakers somewhat softly, audible but not quite enough to drown out suffocating quiet.  
      Vinny turned it up a few notches, then closed his eyes and allowed the music to wash over him, smoking his cigarette down to the filter.

+

      A strange fwooshing sound started Vinny out of his not-quite-sleeping, not-quite-awake state, fluttering his eyes open to investigate what could've made such a comical noise; he didn't have to look far, as the answer was towering over him, eyes glowing in the dim of his living room— "Lonnie," He croaked, throat dry from disuse.  
      "Didn't think you'd see me again, am I right?" Lonnie asked softly; there was something in its diction that had Vinny's nerves on edge.  
      "Not particularly," Vinny answered just as gently.  
      Lonnie hummed, the sound vibrating deep in Vinny's chest like the rumble of an earthquake. Doing his best to ignore the situation, he sat up, then stood to be on a more even ground with it. "I'd figured you'd uncover the truth easily," Lonnie said.  
      "Wasn't hard really,"  
      "That is really too bad," Lonnie dragged one of its claws softly down Vinny's jaw, head falling to the side, "I would've liked to get to know you better,"  
      The amount of disgusting chills that ran up and down Vinny's spine at its words was actually insane. "Sorry, looks like you'll just have to find another human to trick," He told him in a bland tone that hid his mounting fear.  
      "Perhaps,"  
      Lonnie stepped back a few inches and waved slightly, smiling to reveal all of its incredibly sharp and shark-like teeth. "Be seeing you, Vincent,"  
      Vinny automatically tuned out at the sound of his full name, pivoting back towards the sofa so that he could lay back down, turning his music up more and taking his phone out to pass the time doing something mundane and mind-numbing.  
      How he'd lived before without anyone around to bother him was beyond him. Looks like he'd just have to get used to it again.


End file.
